---
type: "Bill"
title: "Insanity and Mental Incapacity; hearing before a court orders an evaluation of the mental competency of an accused person to stand trial; require"
description: "A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Part 2 of Article 6 of Chapter 7 of Title 17 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to insanity and mental incapacity, so as to require a hearing before a court orders an evaluation of the mental competency of an accused person to stand trial; to provide for the release of reports of such evaluations; to establish different procedures in cases where the subject has been accused only of one or more nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, including automatic dismissal in some cases, subject to exceptions; to provide for such different procedures and such exceptions; to provide for related matters; to provide for an effective date and applicability; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ga"
legislature: "Georgia General Assembly"
session: "2025_26"
identifier: "SB 132"
citation: "Georgia SB 132 (2025_26)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["CRIMINAL PROCEDURE"]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Ben Watson", "Brian Strickland", "Kay Kirkpatrick", "Kim Jackson", "Tonya Anderson"]
version_count: 5
action_count: 18
vote_count: 3
first_action: "2025-02-10"
last_action: "2025-07-01"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/6362c5e5-fa34-4174-89f8-5d6f4a28438f"
source_url: "http://webservices.legis.ga.gov/GGAServices/Legislation/Service.svc?wsdl"
source_hash: "0a272dc5ba37c043575eff1a6895775634fb745d4b71aa7a3a6afa7e8d0aad0a"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ga"]
---

# Georgia SB 132 (2025_26) — Insanity and Mental Incapacity; hearing before a court orders an evaluation of the mental competency of an accused person to stand trial; require

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Part 2 of Article 6 of Chapter 7 of Title 17 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to insanity and mental incapacity, so as to require a hearing before a court orders an evaluation of the mental competency of an accused person to stand trial; to provide for the release of reports of such evaluations; to establish different procedures in cases where the subject has been accused only of one or more nonviolent misdemeanor offenses, including automatic dismissal in some cases, subject to exceptions; to provide for such different procedures and such exceptions; to provide for related matters; to provide for an effective date and applicability; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **As Introduced LC 49 2133** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20252026/231746.pdf)
2. **As Passed Senate** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20252026/235641.pdf)
3. **Committee Sub LC 49 2240S** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20252026/234499.pdf)
4. **LC 49 2357S/hss** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20252026/237944.pdf)
5. **SB 132/AP*** (committee substitute) — [source](http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/20252026/239593.pdf)

## Votes

- Senate Vote #469 - 2025-2026 Regular Session — **50–1** (pass) · upper
- House Vote #390 - 2025-2026 Regular Session — **142–24** (pass) · lower
- Senate Vote #209 - 2025-2026 Regular Session — **55–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Ben Watson — primary (person)
- Brian Strickland — primary (person)
- Kay Kirkpatrick — primary (person)
- Kim Jackson — primary (person)
- Tonya Anderson — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2025-02-10** Senate Hopper `introduction`
- **2025-02-11** Senate Read and Referred `referral-committee`
- **2025-02-28** Senate Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2025-03-03** Senate Read Second Time `reading-2`
- **2025-03-06** Senate Tabled
- **2025-03-06** Senate Taken from Table
- **2025-03-06** Senate Third Read `reading-3`
- **2025-03-06** Senate Passed/Adopted By Substitute `passage`
- **2025-03-10** House First Readers `reading-1`
- **2025-03-11** House Second Readers `reading-2`
- **2025-03-28** House Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2025-04-02** House Third Readers `reading-3`
- **2025-04-02** House Passed/Adopted By Substitute `passage`
- **2025-04-04** Senate Agreed House Amend or Sub
- **2025-04-10** Senate Sent to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2025-05-14** Senate Date Signed by Governor `executive-signature`
- **2025-05-14** Act 288 `executive-signature`
- **2025-07-01** Effective Date

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/6362c5e5-fa34-4174-89f8-5d6f4a28438f`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Georgia legislature records).