HB1458: HB1458 Crimes and offenses; permit clergy members to be charged with certain improper sexual contact offenses

Georgia's improper sexual contact law (O.C.G.A. § 16-6-5.1) currently applies to employees, agents, and foster parents who engage in sexual contact with students, patients, inmates, and others under their authority or care. This bill rewrites that law to add clergy members as a category of offender. It defines a clergy member broadly, covering licensed and unlicensed ministers, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, and other spiritual leaders, as well as anyone who provides or claims to provide spiritual guidance or counseling. It also defines a new 'pastoral counseling or spiritual authority relationship' covering situations where a clergy member provides spiritual guidance, confession, mentoring, or emotional support in a way that gives them influence or authority over someone. Clergy members who engage in sexually explicit conduct or sexual contact with someone in that kind of relationship could now be charged with first or second degree improper sexual contact, facing the same penalties, ranging from misdemeanor charges to decades in prison, that already apply to employees and agents under this law.

• Adds 'clergy member' as a category of person who can be charged with improper sexual contact by employee, agent, or foster parent (O.C.G.A. § 16-6-5.1).
• Creates a new legal definition of 'clergy member' covering licensed and unlicensed ministers, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, and other spiritual leaders or people who claim to provide spiritual guidance.
• Creates a new definition of a 'pastoral counseling or spiritual authority relationship' describing when a clergy member is seen as having influence or authority over another person.
• Makes it a crime for a clergy member to knowingly engage in sexually explicit conduct or sexual contact with someone who is the subject of that clergy member's pastoral counseling or spiritual authority relationship.
• Applies the existing tiered penalties, ranging from misdemeanor charges up to life imprisonment for repeat sexual felony offenders, to clergy members found guilty under the revised law.
• Keeps the existing exceptions for lawfully married spouses and students enrolled at the same school as the victim.

Clergy members of any faith, including unlicensed spiritual leaders, who provide pastoral counseling or spiritual guidance; people who receive that counseling or guidance; and, more broadly, the existing groups already covered by the law such as employees, agents, foster parents, students, patients, and people under correctional or protective supervision.

Currently a clergy member who has sexual contact with someone they counsel spiritually may not be charged under this specific statute the way a teacher, therapist, or corrections employee would be. This bill would let prosecutors bring the same charges and penalties against clergy who exploit a pastoral counseling relationship.

• Section 1 revises O.C.G.A. § 16-6-5.1 to add 'clergy member' throughout the list of people who can commit improper sexual contact offenses, alongside employees and agents.
• Adds new definitions for 'clergy member' and 'pastoral counseling or spiritual authority relationship' in subsection (a).
• Subsection (b)(8) and (c)(8) create new grounds for first and second degree charges when the victim is the subject of a clergy member's pastoral counseling or spiritual authority relationship.
• Subsections (f) through (h) apply existing penalty tiers, including enhanced penalties for victims under 16 and mandatory life imprisonment for repeat sexual felony offenders, to clergy members convicted under the statute.
• Subsection (e) keeps existing exemptions for lawfully married spouses and for students at the same school as the victim.
• Section 2 repeals conflicting laws.

1. 2026-03-03House Second Readers (House)
2. 2026-02-26House First Readers (House)
3. 2026-02-25House Hopper (House)

• Tyler Smith (R, HD-018)Primary sponsor
• Soo Hong (R, HD-103)
• Stan Gunter (R, HD-008)
• Matt Reeves (R, HD-099)
• Scott Hilton (R, HD-048)

• clergy sexual abuse
• sex crimes law
• religious institutions
• criminal penalties
• spiritual counseling