Georgia Criminal Code Title 16: Crimes, Defenses, and Penalties

Title 16 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is Georgia’s criminal code. It defines every offense the state recognizes, lists what prosecutors have to prove, and sets the range of punishment a court can impose after a conviction. The chapters move from general principles through specific categories: crimes against persons, crimes against property, public-order offenses, drug offenses, and more. If a citation you see begins with “16,” it is a criminal statute.¹

How to Read a Title 16 Citation

Every section of the Georgia code uses a three-part number: Title-Chapter-Section. O.C.G.A. § 16-5-1, for example, is Title 16 (crimes), Chapter 5 (crimes against the person), Section 1 (murder). Chapters are further divided into articles and parts, so related offenses sit together. Chapter 5 covers crimes against persons; Article 1 of that chapter deals with homicide, Article 2 with assault and battery.

The opening sections at §§ 16-1-1 through 16-1-11 set the ground rules for the rest of the code. They state its purpose, require fair warning of what conduct is illegal, and define the key terms used throughout.² Section 16-1-3 draws the single most important line in the code: the line between a felony and a misdemeanor.³

Felony or Misdemeanor

Classification drives everything that follows a charge: the possible sentence, the court that hears the case, the procedural rights the defendant receives, and the lasting record.

A felony is any crime punishable by death, life imprisonment, or more than twelve months of incarceration.³ Within that label, sentences vary enormously from one offense to the next. A judge must impose a specific number of months or years inside the statutory range for the particular crime, and may suspend or probate part of the sentence unless the statute forbids it.⁴ Several offenses in Title 16 carry mandatory minimums that remove that discretion.

A misdemeanor is any crime that does not meet the felony threshold.³ A standard misdemeanor is capped at twelve months in county jail and a $1,000 fine, or both.⁵

One step up sits the misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature. The jail cap stays at twelve months, but the maximum fine jumps to $5,000, and earned-time credits are tighter, so an incarcerated person has less room to reduce the sentence through good behavior.⁶

Crimes Against Persons (Chapter 5)

Chapter 5 covers offenses that cause physical harm, create fear of harm, or restrict a person’s freedom.⁷

Homicide

Murder under § 16-5-1 takes two forms. Malice murder is an unlawful killing committed with malice aforethought. Felony murder is a killing that occurs during the commission of a felony, whether or not the death was intended. Either form carries death, life without parole, or life imprisonment.⁸ Manslaughter is handled separately, split between voluntary killings in the heat of passion and involuntary killings caused by criminal negligence.

Assault and Battery

Simple assault involves attempting to cause a violent injury or putting someone in reasonable fear of harm. Aggravated assault covers assaults with a deadly weapon, with intent to murder or rape, by strangulation, or by firing a gun from a vehicle. The baseline range is one to twenty years, but enhanced minimums apply based on the victim: ten years mandatory for a firearm assault on a law enforcement officer, three years for a victim over 65, and twenty-five to fifty years for an assault with intent to rape a child under 14.⁹

Battery requires actual contact. Simple battery is intentional contact that is insulting or provoking. Aggravated battery requires proof that the defendant maliciously caused serious harm such as loss of a limb or an organ.¹⁰

Family Violence Battery

When battery occurs between household members (spouses, former spouses, parents and children, or people who live or have lived together), the offense becomes family violence battery under § 16-5-23.1. A first offense is normally a misdemeanor, but it becomes a felony carrying one to five years when the defendant has a prior forcible-felony conviction against a household member. A second or later family violence battery conviction is automatically a felony with that same one-to-five-year range, whether or not the victim is the same.¹¹

Kidnapping and Stalking

Kidnapping under § 16-5-40 is the unlawful abduction of a person without lawful authority. When the victim is 14 or older, the range runs from ten to twenty years.¹²

Stalking under § 16-5-90 covers following, surveilling, or contacting someone without their consent to harass or intimidate them. “Contact” is defined broadly and includes in-person encounters, phone calls, mail, and any form of electronic communication. A first stalking offense is a misdemeanor; a second becomes a felony carrying one to ten years.¹³

Sexual Offenses (Chapter 6)

Rape under § 16-6-1 carries some of the heaviest penalties in the code: death, life without parole, life imprisonment, or a split sentence of at least twenty-five years followed by probation for life.¹⁴ Chapter 6 also covers child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and sexual battery, each with its own elements. Repeat sex offenders face mandatory enhanced penalties and lifetime electronic monitoring.

Crimes Against Property (Chapters 7, 8, and 9)

Burglary and Trespass

Burglary under § 16-7-1 means entering or remaining inside a structure without permission, with the intent to commit a felony or a theft inside. First-degree burglary targets dwellings and carries one to twenty years for a first offense, with higher minimums on repeat convictions: two years on a second, five on a third. Second-degree burglary covers other buildings and runs one to five years on a first offense, one to eight on later ones.¹⁵

Criminal trespass under § 16-7-21 is a misdemeanor covering lesser intrusions: intentionally damaging someone’s property when the damage is $500 or less, entering land or a vehicle without permission for an unlawful purpose, or refusing to leave after being told to.¹⁶

Theft

Theft by taking under § 16-8-2 is the unlawful taking of another person’s property with intent to deprive them of it.¹⁷ Section 16-8-12 sets penalties by value:

$1,500 or less: misdemeanor.
$1,500.01 to $4,999.99: one to five years, with judge’s discretion to treat as a misdemeanor.
$5,000 to $24,999.99: one to ten years, with the same misdemeanor option.
$25,000 or more: two to twenty years, with no misdemeanor option.
Third or later theft conviction: felony carrying one to five years regardless of amount.

The $1,500 threshold is the line that matters most in practice. Below it, a theft stays a misdemeanor unless prior convictions push it up.¹⁸

Theft by deception, theft by conversion, and shoplifting are separate offenses. Shoplifting has its own escalator: a fourth conviction is a mandatory felony carrying one to ten years with the first year in custody, no matter the dollar amount and no matter whether earlier convictions were felonies or misdemeanors.¹⁹

Arson

First-degree arson under § 16-7-60 covers knowingly damaging a dwelling, an insured structure, or any building where human life could reasonably be endangered, using fire or explosives. The penalty is a fine of up to $50,000 or one to twenty years in prison, or both.²⁰ Lower degrees apply to less dangerous circumstances and carry reduced sentences.

Identity Fraud and Computer Crimes

Section 16-9-121 makes it a crime to willfully and fraudulently use, possess, or create another person’s identifying information without consent. The statute also reaches the use of a deceased person’s identity and the creation of fictitious identifying information to commit fraud. The law carves out people under 21 who use a fake ID solely to get into a business or buy age-restricted items; that behavior is handled under other statutes.²¹

Georgia’s computer crime statutes at § 16-9-93 define four distinct offenses: computer theft (using a computer without authorization to take property), computer trespass (deleting data or interfering with systems), computer invasion of privacy (examining someone’s personal or financial data without authorization), and computer forgery (creating or altering digital records in a way that would constitute forgery on paper). Most carry up to $50,000 in fines or fifteen years in prison, or both.²²

Drug Offenses (Chapter 13)

Chapter 13 is the Georgia Controlled Substances Act. It organizes drugs into five schedules based on medical usefulness and abuse potential, closely tracking the federal schedules. Schedule I substances are treated as the most dangerous with no accepted medical use; Schedule V is the lowest-risk tier.

Possession

Simple possession of a Schedule I substance or a narcotic drug in Schedule II is a felony, with sentence set by weight:

Less than 1 gram: one to three years.
1 gram to less than 4 grams: one to eight years.
4 grams to less than 28 grams: one to fifteen years.

Non-narcotic Schedule II substances follow a similar structure with the weight thresholds shifted up (under 2 grams, 2 to 4 grams, 4 to 28 grams).²³

Trafficking

Trafficking under § 16-13-31 is triggered by quantity alone. You don’t need to be caught selling anything; possessing the threshold weight is enough. Mandatory minimums and steep fines apply:

Cocaine, 28 grams or more: ten years and $200,000. The minimums rise to fifteen years and $300,000 at 200 grams, and twenty-five years and $1 million at 400 grams.
Marijuana, more than 10 pounds: five years and $100,000. The minimums rise to seven years and $250,000 at 2,000 pounds, and fifteen years and $1 million at 10,000 pounds.

Because these minimums are mandatory, judges have almost no room to impose a lighter sentence.²⁴

A note on federal marijuana rescheduling: in April 2026 the U.S. Department of Justice and DEA moved FDA-approved marijuana products and products regulated under state medical licenses from Schedule I to Schedule III, with a broader rescheduling hearing set for June 2026.²⁵ Until Georgia’s legislature amends Title 16, the state penalties above remain in effect.

Public Order Offenses

Obstruction of an officer under § 16-10-24 covers knowingly and willfully hindering a law enforcement or corrections officer in the performance of their duties. The basic offense is a misdemeanor. Using or offering violence makes it a felony: one to five years for a first conviction, two to ten for a second, and three to fifteen for a third or later. Every obstruction conviction carries a minimum $300 fine.²⁶

Disorderly conduct under § 16-11-39 prohibits fighting words and conduct that creates a hazardous condition without a legitimate purpose.²⁷ Chapter 11 also contains Georgia’s weapons rules, including who may not possess firearms and where firearms may not be carried. Violations can bring incarceration and forfeiture of the weapon.²⁸

Self-Defense and Other Justifications (Chapter 3)

Georgia allows you to threaten or use force against someone when you reasonably believe it is necessary to defend yourself or a third person from the imminent use of unlawful force. The force you use must match the threat. Deadly force, or force likely to cause death or serious injury, is only justified when you reasonably believe it is the only way to prevent being killed or seriously hurt, or to stop a forcible felony.²⁹

Self-defense is not available in three situations: you provoked the confrontation planning to use the other person’s response as a cover for harming them; you were in the process of committing a felony; or you were the aggressor and did not clearly withdraw from the encounter and communicate that withdrawal before the other person continued using force.²⁹ The jury decides whether a reasonable person in your position would have believed the threat was real and immediate, not whether the threat turned out to actually exist.

Attempt and Conspiracy (Chapter 4)

Georgia can punish the effort to commit a crime even when the crime itself never happens. Criminal attempt under § 16-4-1 requires intent to commit a specific crime plus a substantial step toward carrying it out. Thinking about it is not enough; there has to be concrete action that moves past preparation.³⁰

Criminal conspiracy requires an agreement between two or more people to commit a crime, plus at least one overt act by any participant to advance the plan. Penalties scale with the planned crime: conspiracy to commit a felony carries up to half the maximum prison time and half the maximum fine that would have applied to the completed offense. Conspiracy to commit a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment carries one to ten years. Conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor is punished as a misdemeanor.³¹

How Long Prosecutors Have to File Charges

Georgia sets time limits on how long the state has to bring charges after a crime is committed. The deadlines live at § 17-3-1:

Murder: no time limit.
Crimes punishable by death or life imprisonment other than murder: seven years, except forcible rape, which has a fifteen-year window.
Other felonies: four years, extended to seven years when the victim was under 18 at the time.
Misdemeanors: two years.

Georgia makes a separate exception for DNA evidence: when DNA is used to identify the suspect, there is no time limit at all for armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and aggravated sexual battery.³² Once a deadline expires, the state loses the ability to prosecute regardless of how strong the evidence looks.

First Offender Treatment

Georgia’s First Offender Act at § 42-8-60 gives judges a powerful option for defendants who have never been convicted of a felony. Instead of entering a formal judgment of guilt, the court can defer adjudication and either place the defendant on probation or impose a term of confinement. If the defendant finishes the terms successfully, they are exonerated as a matter of law and discharged without a felony conviction on their record.³³

It is not open-ended. A person can only use first offender treatment once. Serious violent felonies, sexual offenses, trafficking in persons, DUI, and crimes against elderly or disabled victims are excluded. The court must review the defendant’s criminal history through the Georgia Crime Information Center before granting the status. If the defendant violates probation or commits a new offense during the first offender period, the court can revoke the deferral and enter a formal conviction with a sentence up to the original statutory maximum.³³

What a Felony Conviction Does Beyond the Sentence

A felony conviction in Georgia reaches past the prison term and fine. The clearest collateral consequence is the loss of voting rights for the duration of the sentence. Georgia restores voting rights automatically once a person completes the full sentence, including probation or parole; no pardon or separate application is required.

Federal law separately prohibits anyone convicted of a felony from possessing firearms, and Georgia enforces that prohibition through its own weapons statutes. Employment, professional licensing, and housing can also be affected by a felony record, though those consequences are driven by employer and licensing-board policies rather than by any single section of Title 16. For defendants who qualify, First Offender treatment is one of the few mechanisms that can keep these consequences from attaching in the first place.

1
Georgia General Assembly. User’s Guide to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated
2
Justia Law. Georgia Code Title 16 Chapter 1 – General Provisions
3
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-1-3 – Definitions
4
FindLaw. Georgia Code 17-10-1 – Fixing of Sentence
5
Justia Law. Georgia Code 17-10-3 – Punishment for Misdemeanors
6
Justia Law. Georgia Code 17-10-4 – Punishment for Misdemeanors of a High and Aggravated Nature
7
Justia Law. Georgia Code Title 16 Chapter 5 – Crimes Against the Person
8
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-1 – Murder
9
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-21 – Aggravated Assault
10
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-24 – Aggravated Battery
11
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-23.1 – Battery
12
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-40 – Kidnapping
13
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-5-90 – Stalking
14
FindLaw. Georgia Code 16-6-1 – Rape
15
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-7-1 – Burglary
16
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-7-21 – Criminal Trespass
17
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-8-2 – Theft by Taking
18
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-8-12 – Penalties for Theft
19
FindLaw. Georgia Code 16-8-14 – Shoplifting
20
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-7-60 – Arson in the First Degree
21
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-9-121 – Elements of Offense
22
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-9-93 – Computer Crimes Defined
23
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-13-30 – Purchase, Possession, Manufacture, Distribution, or Sale of Controlled Substances or Marijuana
24
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-13-31 – Trafficking in Cocaine, Illegal Drugs, Marijuana, or Methamphetamine
25
United States Department of Justice. Justice Department Places FDA-Approved Marijuana Products and Products Containing Marijuana Subject to a Qualifying State-issued License in Schedule III
26
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-10-24 – Obstructing or Hindering Law Enforcement Officers
27
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-11-39 – Disorderly Conduct
28
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-11-138 – Defense of Self or Others as Absolute Defense
29
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-3-21 – Use of Force in Defense of Self or Others
30
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-4-1 – Criminal Attempt
31
Justia Law. Georgia Code 16-4-8 – Conspiracy to Commit a Crime
32
Justia Law. Georgia Code 17-3-1 – Generally
33
Justia Law. Georgia Code 42-8-60 – Probation Prior to Adjudication of Guilt