Aggravated stalking is stalking committed in violation of a court order.
What Stalking Is
Under OCGA 16-5-90(a)(1), a person commits stalking by following, placing under surveillance, or contacting another person “at or about a place or places without the consent of the other person for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the other person.” The same subsection defines “harassing and intimidating” as “a knowing and willful course of conduct … which causes emotional distress by placing such person in reasonable fear for such person’s safety … by establishing a pattern of harassing and intimidating behavior, and which serves no legitimate purpose.”
What Makes It Aggravated
OCGA 16-5-91(a) adds a court order to that conduct: a restraining order, a temporary or permanent protective order, an injunction, a good behavior bond, or a condition of pretrial release, probation, or parole.
The label on the order does not control. In State v. Davis, 339 Ga. App. 214 (2016), the no-contact language sat in a final divorce decree, and the trial court dismissed the charge because “divorce” is not on the statutory list. The Court of Appeals reversed: the provision was a “permanent injunction” within the statute.
A Pattern Is Still Required
The order does not do the work by itself. In State v. Burke, 287 Ga. 377 (2010), the State’s whole case was a single violation of a permanent protective order, a card and a poem mailed fifteen months after it was entered. The Georgia Supreme Court held that “a single violation of a protective order, by itself, does not amount to aggravated stalking.”
Moreover, in Slaughter v. State, 327 Ga. App. 593 (2014), the Court of Appeals held that “[e]ven a single violation of a protective order may violate OCGA 16-5-91(a) if that violation is part of a pattern of harassing and intimidating behavior.”
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