Which of the eighteen new misdemeanors created by Georgia's 2002 General Assembly will trigger fingerprinting at booking under Georgia Crime Information Center procedures (after the 2003 update that adds vehicle-registration offenses)?

Plain-English summary

This opinion is a do-over of 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07 with one new offense added. The Deputy Director of the Georgia Crime Information Center asked the Attorney General to redo the fingerprintable-offense analysis to include O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15, knowingly driving a vehicle on a suspended, canceled, or revoked registration. That offense had been omitted from the original request.

Attorney General Thurbert Baker designated § 40-6-15 as fingerprintable. The other seventeen designations from the 2002 opinion all carry over without change. So the final tally for 2002-session misdemeanors is twelve fingerprintable, six not.

Designated as fingerprintable (12):

• O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(1) (possess/use false ID)
• O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(2) (manufacture/distribute false ID)
• O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(3) (trademark-infringing ID)
• O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(6) (possess/use ID issued to another)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-5-125(a) (lending driver's license/ID card)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(1) (lending disability ID card)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(2) (misrepresenting disability ID card)
• O.C.G.A. § 7-6A-8(B) (Georgia Fair Lending Act misdemeanors)
• O.C.G.A. § 16-9-111 (air-bag substitution; misdemeanor of high and aggravated nature)
• O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43(g) (obstruction of litter enforcement)
• O.C.G.A. § 27-1-38 (trawler fishing gear, on consistency with 1995 Op. Att'y Gen. 95-15)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 (driving with suspended/canceled/revoked registration): new in 2003

Not designated (6):

• O.C.G.A. § 48-13-58.1(b)(1) (innkeeper failure to pay excise tax)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-11-3.2 (parking-lot tow misdemeanor)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-8-10(a) (nitrous-oxide-supplied passenger car)
• O.C.G.A. § 40-6-254 (operating vehicle with unsecured load)
• O.C.G.A. § 43-34-198(b) (practicing orthotics/prosthetics without license)
• O.C.G.A. § 4-4-6 (failure to report animal diseases)

The opinion's footnote expressly states: "This opinion includes consideration of a crime, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 (Supp. 2002), not presented in your original request and supersedes 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07. In all other respects the opinions are the same."

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2003. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

In particular, several of the underlying offenses have been amended since 2003 (the Georgia Fair Lending Act was substantially weakened in 2003 by HB 60), and the GCIC fingerprintable-offense list has been updated by additional AG opinions year by year. Anyone working from a current GCIC offense codes manual should rely on that manual rather than this opinion.

Common questions

Q: Why was O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 added to the fingerprintable list?
A: Driving with a suspended, canceled, or revoked vehicle registration is closely tied to other vehicle-related offenses (driving on a suspended license, insurance violations, identity-related offenses) that already triggered fingerprinting. The AG's general approach is to designate misdemeanors that serve criminal-history-tracking goals or that fit consistently alongside already-designated offenses. The vehicle-registration suspension offense fit that pattern.

Q: How does this opinion relate to 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07?
A: It supersedes it. The 2002 opinion did not address § 40-6-15 because the original request did not include it. After the GCIC noticed the omission, the AG re-issued the analysis to cover all eighteen offenses. The substantive designations of the original seventeen offenses are unchanged.

Q: What is "fingerprintable" actually doing?
A: O.C.G.A. § 35-3-33 establishes Georgia's centralized criminal history records system. For fingerprintable offenses, law enforcement must take fingerprints from arrestees and submit them to GCIC, creating a record that follows the person through future background checks. Non-fingerprintable misdemeanors do not generate that record, so they do not show up in routine background checks.

Q: Could a court still order fingerprinting for a non-designated misdemeanor?
A: A trial court may, in some circumstances, direct fingerprinting in a particular case. But absent a specific court order, jail intake will not fingerprint someone arrested only for a non-designated misdemeanor.

Q: Do these designations apply retroactively to people charged before the opinion was issued?
A: The designations apply prospectively, going forward from the date of the AG's designation. People previously charged with these offenses without fingerprinting do not generally have records added to GCIC retroactively.

Background and statutory framework

Same as 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07: O.C.G.A. § 35-3-33 sets up the GCIC and lists fingerprintable offenses; subsection (1)(A)(v) gives the Attorney General authority to designate any other offense for fingerprint reporting. The 2002 General Assembly enacted seventeen new misdemeanors in its 2002 session (subsequently identified as eighteen, with the addition of § 40-6-15), and the AG was asked to walk through each one and decide.

The opinion's structure follows the same offense-by-offense format as the 2002 version, with the new offense (the eighteenth) added at the end. The reasoning patterns from the 2002 opinion (designating identity-document, driver's-license, lending, air-bag, litter-enforcement, and trawler-related offenses; not designating tax, parking, nitrous-oxide, cargo, professional-licensing, and animal-disease offenses) carry over.

Citations and references

Statutes:
- O.C.G.A. § 35-3-33(1)(A)(v) (AG's designation authority)
- O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4 (false identification documents)
- O.C.G.A. § 40-5-125(a) (lending of driver's license / ID card)
- O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179 (disability ID card misuse)
- O.C.G.A. § 7-6A; § 7-6A-8(B) (Georgia Fair Lending Act)
- O.C.G.A. § 16-9-111 (air-bag substitution)
- O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43(g) (obstruction of litter law enforcement)
- O.C.G.A. § 27-1-38 (trawler fishing-gear violation)
- O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 (suspended/canceled/revoked vehicle registration): added in this opinion
- O.C.G.A. §§ 48-13-58.1(b)(1); 40-11-3.2; 40-8-10(a); 40-6-254; 43-34-198(b); 4-4-6 (offenses not designated)

Other AG opinions:
- Supersedes 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07
- 1995 Op. Att'y Gen. 95-15 (consistency basis for designations within Title 27 and non-designation of unsecured-load offense)

Source

• Landing page: https://law.georgia.gov/opinions/2003-3
• Original PDF: not linked from landing page

Original opinion text

[This official opinion supersedes 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07 as indicated in note 1 below.1 ] You have requested my opinion concerning whether any of the following seventeen misdemeanor offenses enacted during the 2002 Session of the General Assembly should be designated as offenses for which persons charged with violations are to be fingerprinted. Those offenses include: O.C.G.A. § 48-13-58.1(b)(1)(innkeeper failure to pay excise tax); O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(1) (possession or use of false identification document); O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(2)(manufacture or possession of false identification document with intent to sell); O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(3) (manufacture or distribution of identification document containing a trademark without consent of owner); O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(6) (possession or use of identification card issued to another without permission); O.C.G.A. § 40-5-125(a) (lending drivers' license or identification card to another); O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(1) (lending identification or permit for persons with disabilities to another); O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(2) (unlawful display or representation of identification card for persons with disabilities); O.C.G.A.§ 40-11-3.2 (unlawful towing of vehicle from paid parking lot); O.C.G.A. § 7-6A (violation of Georgia Fair Lending Act); O.C.G.A. § 16-9-111 (unlawful installation of air bags); O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43(g) (obstruction of persons enforcing littering laws); O.C.G.A. § 40-8-10(a) (unlawful use of nitrous oxide); O.C.G.A. § 27-1-38 (unlawful possession of fishing gear on trawlers); O.C.G.A. § 40-6-254 (operating vehicle with unsecured load); O.C.G.A. § 43-34-198(b) (practicing orthotics or prosthetics without a license);O.C.G.A. § 4-4-6 (failure to report animal diseases); and O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 (knowingly driving a vehicle on suspended, canceled, or revoked registration). In addition to the list of fingerprintable offenses mandated by statute, O.C.G.A. § 35-3-33(1)(A)(v) provides that the Attorney General may designate any other offense as one for which those charged with violations are to be fingerprinted. The first misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 48-13-58.1(b)(1). That Code section provides that it shall be a misdemeanor for any innkeeper to fail to make a return and pay taxes due to any governing authority under Article Three of Title 48, if the tax liability is $10,000.00 or less. An offense resulting from a violation of this Code section does not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The second misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(1). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to "knowingly possess, display, or use any false, fictitious, fraudulent, or altered identification document." I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(1) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The third misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(2). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly manufacture, alter, sell, distribute, deliver, possess with intent to sell deliver, or distribute, or offer for sale, delivery or distribution a false identification document. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(2) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The fourth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(3). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly manufacture, possess, or distribute any identification document containing the trademark or trade name of another without the written consent of the owner of the trademark or trade name. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 19-9-4(b)(3) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The fifth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(6). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly possess, use or display an identification document issued to another person without the permission of that person for a lawful purpose, unless it is possessed, used or displayed to restore it to that person or the agency that issued the document. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 16-9-4(b)(6) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The sixth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-5-125(a). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to "[l]end his or her driver's license or identification card to any other person or permit knowingly the use thereof by another person." I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-125(a) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The seventh misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(1). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor for any person to lend his or her identification card for persons with disabilities to any other person or to permit use of his or her card by any other person. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(1) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The eighth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(2). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor for any person to represent as his or her own an identification card for persons with disabilities not issued to him or her. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-179(2) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The ninth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-11-3.2. That Code section makes it a misdemeanor for the owner of a parking lot within 500 feet of an establishment that serves alcohol to tow a vehicle left in that lot between midnight and noon of the following day. An offense arising from a violation of this Code section does not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The tenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 7-6A, violation of the Georgia Fair Lending Act. Title 7, Chapter 6A regulates lenders and the terms of consumer loans. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 7-6A-8(B) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The eleventh misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-9-111. That Code section provides "[a]ny person who installs or reinstalls any object in lieu of and other than an air bag which was designed in accordance with federal safety regulations for the make, model, and year of the vehicle as part of a vehicle inflatable restraint system shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of a high and aggravated nature." I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 16-9-111 as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The twelfth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43(g). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to obstruct or resist any person in connection with that person's enforcement of O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43 or local littering ordinances, or to retaliate or discriminate against such a person as a reprisal for any act or omission of such person. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 16-7-43(g) as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The thirteenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-8-10(a). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to drive a passenger car that supplies the car's engine with nitrous oxide. An offense arising from a violation of this Code section does not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The fourteenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 27-1-38. That Code section provides that any violation of Title 27 or any rules relating to the possession or use of fishing gear on trawlers shall be a misdemeanor. I have previously designated misdemeanors arising under O.C.G.A. § 27-1-3 through O.C.G.A. § 27-1-39 as fingerprintable offenses. See 1995 Op. Att'y Gen. 95-15. Therefore, I hereby designate the violation of O.C.G.A. § 27-1-38 as an offense for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. The fifteenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-6-254. That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to operate any motor vehicle with an inadequately secured load. I have previously designated misdemeanor failure to secure a vehicle load an offense for which those charged are not to be fingerprinted. See 1995 Op. Att'y Gen. 95-15. Therefore, an offense arising under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-254 does not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The sixteenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 43-34-198(b). That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to practice orthotics or prosthetics without a license. An offense arising under O.C.G.A. § 43-34-198(b) does not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The seventeenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 4-4-6. That Code section makes it a misdemeanor to violate the state requirements concerning notice and reporting of animal diseases. An offense arising under O.C.G.A. § 4-4-6 do not, at this time, appear to be an offense for which fingerprinting is required and I am not, at this time, designating this offense as one which requires fingerprinting. The eighteenth misdemeanor offense is O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15. That Code section makes it a misdemeanor knowingly to drive a vehicle when the registration of the vehicle is suspended, canceled, or revoked. I hereby designate offenses arising under O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 as offenses for which those charged are to be fingerprinted. I trust that my revisions of the specific designations of those offenses for which persons charged with violations are to be fingerprinted will aid you in discharging your duties pursuant to the Georgia Crime Information Act. Prepared by: Katherine Durden Assistant Attorney General 1 This opinion includes consideration of a crime, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-15 (Supp. 2002), not presented in your original request and supersedes 2002 Op. Att'y Gen. 02-07. In all other respects the opinions are the same.