The Judicial Council of Georgia has voted to ask state legislators to give the state’s superior and state court judges greater authority to suspend statutory speedy trial deadlines beyond the end of the governor’s COVID-19 public health emergency. 

The council approved the proposal without objection on Friday, as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia said he may “call an audible” and reconsider his decision last month to allow courts to restart in-person jury trials. Those proceedings had been suspended for eight months.