ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Five state lawmakers want the crime of trafficking people for labor or sexual servitude to be eligible for the death penalty.

On Monday, the lawmakers filed House Bill 1154. The bill’s main sponsor is state Rep. David Clark, R-Buford. Its co-signers are state Reps. Tyler Paul Smith, R-Bremen; Joseph Gullett, R-Dallas; Alan Powel, R-Hartwell; Derrick McCollum, R-Chestnut Mountain and Karen Mathiak, R-Griffin.

Georgia law currently allows prosecutors to seek the death penalty for aircraft hijacking and treason.

Georgia’s death penalty is also eligible in cases involving murder, rape, armed robbery and kidnapping if at least one aggravating circumstance is proven — such as prior capital felony convictions or convictions for serious sex crimes, murder of a peace officer, jailer or firefighter or if the crime was committed for money, among others.

In 1973, then-Gov. Jimmy Carter signed into law a set of new death penalty guidelines after the U.S. Supreme Court imposed a moratorium on executions in the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia.

Carter’s guidelines met the court’s constitutional criteria, and the landmark 1976 case of Gregg v. Georgia lifted the national moratorium on executions, allowing Georgia’s death penalty statute to stand as a model for other states.

But by 2012, Carter — who had been a death penalty advocate while governor — was reversing his position. In a 2012 op-ed titled “Show Death Penalty the Door” in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he wrote, “It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.”

In a 2013 symposium, Carter said, “In complete honesty, when I was governor, I was not nearly as concerned about the unfairness of the application of the death penalty as I am now. I know much more now. I was looking at it from a much more parochial point of view. I didn’t see the injustice of it as I do now.”

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