ATLANTA, Ga. — Some major changes are coming to the way murder appeals are heard in Georgia courts.

The State Supreme Court announced last week that it would no longer handle the bulk of the state’s murder appeals, passing that responsibility instead to the Georgia Court of Appeals.

With exception for death penalty appeals or questions over the constitutionality of a murder trial, the Appeals Court will handle the majority of the roughly 140 murder appeals the Supreme Court has traditionally ruled on starting in July 2027.

Georgia Court of Appeals Chief Judge Trenton Brown told lawmakers at a recent House Judiciary Committee meeting that the extra caseload would severely overburden his already-stretched-thin staff.

“I am not for this transfer, especially under our present circumstances. Most of the judges on the court of appeals share this view,” Brown said. “As the Supreme Court itself acknowledged, non-capital murder appeals make up a large percentage of its caseload. Moving that volume of work would create an unfunded mandate on this court, already working at or above its present capacity.”

Brown suggested lawmakers — who control the purse strings of the judicial branch in Georgia — add money to the appellate budget or consider phasing in a new three-judge panel, which is how appeals are tried in the state.

The question is one of jurisdiction. When Georgia’s constitution was amended in 1983, it spelled out certain criteria for cases that were in the legal authority of the State Supreme Court to rule on. That included constitutional questions on state code sections, election contest cases, judicial disciplinary actions, general oversight of the judicial system, regulations on the practice of law, and certiorari — in where the high court case-reviews the decisions of the appellate court.

L. David Wolfe, an Atlanta attorney who has tried over 100 state murder cases, some in front of the appellate court, says outside of capital cases and constitutional issues, murder appeals were not in the purview of the Georgia Supreme Court.

The question was broached by justices again in 1999, but Wolfe said the high court essentially ignored the interpretation and continued accepting most murder appeals.

“The Georgia Supreme Court said, benevolently, that we’re going to continue doing it anyways,” Wolfe said. “For as long as I’ve been doing it, the jurisdiction for a murder case has been the Supreme Court of Georgia for appellate purposes.”

Wolfe agrees that transferring murder appeals would certainly add to the workload of the taxed appellate court.

“It’d be like me having my practice and then some court saying, ‘I’m going to start assigning you pro bono cases,’” Wolfe said. “Now, I’m having to do everything that I was doing before, and I’m sure they have a full workload, and we’re going to give you these.”

The Georgia Supreme Court had no additional comment on Wednesday.

The decision to move murder appeals to the appellate court was made as the Supreme Court Justices ruled on a murder case out of Fulton County, Coleman v. The State.

In their concurring opinion, Chief Justice Nels Peterson said it was high time the high court stick to the constitution and let the appellate court handle the bulk of murder appeals.

“We squarely reaffirmed that the Georgia Constitution does not vest direct appellate jurisdiction over non-death-penalty murder cases in this Court,” Peterson wrote. “We concluded that we do have the power to decide direct appeals in such cases.”

Questions are now arising over the constitutionality of previously ruled on murder appeals in the Georgia Supreme Court – give the court has admitted it does not have jurisdiction to make those rulings.

“If they didn’t have jurisdiction to do it since 1999, how valid are those sentences,” Wolfe said.

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