---
title: O.C.G.A. § 17-9-3. Recommendations for mercy in capital cases other than those of homicide; effect of no recommendation for mercy in capital cases generally and where defendant under age of 17 at time of commission of offense.
collection: code
id: 17-9-3
cite_as: O.C.G.A. § 17-9-3 (2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/17-9-3
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/17-9-3.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/code/17-9-3/text
source_url: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/document/docs/default-source/joint-features-document-library/t17-(v15)-2020-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=8c04ccfe_0#page=979
date: 2025
status: active
corpus_version: 2025-supplement-89aa39ab3c68
license: CC0-1.0
publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice.
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version: the only printed version
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current_through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly
heading_path: CRIMINAL PROCEDURE / VERDICT AND JUDGMENT GENERALLY / GENERAL PROVISIONS
---

# O.C.G.A. § 17-9-3. Recommendations for mercy in capital cases other than those of homicide; effect of no recommendation for mercy in capital cases generally and where defendant under age of 17 at time of commission of offense.

In all capital cases, other than those of homicide, when the verdict is ‘‘guilty,’’ with a recommendation for mercy, it shall be legal and shall mean imprisonment for life. When the verdict is ‘‘guilty,’’ without a recommendation for mercy, it shall be legal and shall mean that the convicted person shall be sentenced to death. When it is shown that a person convicted of a capital offense without a recommendation for mercy had not reached his seventeenth birthday at the time of the commission of the offense, the punishment of such person shall not be death but shall be imprisonment for life.

## History

Ga. L. 1875, p. 106, § 2; Code 1882, § 4646a; Penal Code 1895, § 1034; Penal Code 1910, § 1060; Code 1933, § 27-2302; Ga. L. 1963, p. 122, § 2; Ga. L. 1974, p. 352, § 2.

## Cross References

Further provisions regarding jury recommendations in death penalty cases, § 17-10-2. Finding by jury of statutory aggravating circumstance and recommendation of death sentence as prerequisites to imposition of death sentence, § 17-10-31.

## Law Reviews

For article discussing the 1968 Criminal Code of Georgia, comparing preexisting provisions of Georgia criminal law, see 5 Ga. St. B.J. 185 (1968). For article, ‘‘Jury Sentencing in Georgia — Time for a Change?,’’ see 5 Ga. St. B.J. 421 (1969). For article recommending more consistency in age requirements of laws pertaining to the welfare of minors, see 6 Ga. St. B.J. 189 (1969). For article, ‘‘The Execution of America’s Children,’’ see 6 Ga. State U.L. Rev. 403 (1990).

## U.s. Code.

Verdicts, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 31.