§ 19-15-4.Georgia Child Fatality Review Panel

This section creates the statewide body above the county child fatality review committees. The Georgia Child Fatality Review Panel oversees the local review process and reports to the Governor on child deaths, with recommendations for prevention. The director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation or a designee coordinates the panel’s work and provides staff support, and the panel is attached to the GBI’s Division of Forensic Sciences for administrative purposes.

The panel has eighteen numbered membership slots. Some members serve because of the office they hold: the chairperson of the Board of Human Services, the DFCS director, the GBI director, the chairperson of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, the Child Advocate for the Protection of Children, and the commissioners of public health, behavioral health and developmental disabilities, and early care and learning. The Governor appoints a district attorney, a juvenile court judge, a forensic pathologist, a local law enforcement official, a superior court judge, a coroner, a State Board of Education member and two citizen members — one from a statewide child abuse prevention organization and one from a statewide childhood injury prevention organization. The Lieutenant Governor appoints a senator, and the Speaker appoints a House member. The Governor names the chair. Appointed members serve two-year terms beginning July 1, while the two legislators serve terms concurrent with their legislative terms. Legislators are paid as on interim study committees; other members who aren’t state officials or employees get the same daily expense and travel allowance; state officials and employees get no extra pay but may be reimbursed for travel.

The panel meets quarterly to review local reports, and whenever the Governor asks. Its ten duties include identifying risk factors and trends in child deaths, sharing information among agencies, studying links between child deaths and household violence, reviewing every local report, training local committees and giving them model protocols, developing a protocol for child fatality investigations, and recommending changes to statutes, regulations or policies in its annual report. The chair may call a special meeting for expedited review when a local committee asks and the chair agrees the report warrants it. By January 1 each year, the panel reports to the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker and the chairs of the Senate and House judiciary committees on how often and why children die, recommends ways to reduce deaths from other than natural causes, and answers six questions, including whether the deaths could have been prevented.

The panel also sets procedures for local reviews and may enlist child protection professionals to help. It may get a subpoena from a superior court judge when the local committee hasn’t used its own subpoena power under § 19-15-3, but if a superior court judge has already ruled the records or witnesses unnecessary, that ruling is conclusive. The section was amended in 2026, effective July 1, 2026.