The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that convicts can be banished from all but one of Georgia's 159 counties when completing their sentences on probation.

In a 6-1 decision, the court partly ruled against a Douglas County man who appealed his banishment from every county in Georgia except Toombs, in southeast Georgia.

In 1995, Gregory Mac Terry was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by 10 years on probation for assaulting and stalking his ex-wife. A Douglas County judge, concerned about Terry's obsession with his ex, banished him from all counties but Toombs for the duration of his sentence on probation and parole.

Terry's lawyer, McNeill Stokes, had argued the sentence was a back door way to force Terry out of the state.

The Georgia Constitution only bars banishment from the entire state, Justice Harris Hines wrote for the majority. Because Terry was banished to Toombs, he is not banished out of the state, Hines said.

Hines also ruled partly in Terry's favor, however, saying the judge erred in also ordering Terry banished to Toombs once he was paroled. Because the Board of Pardons and Paroles is in the executive branch of government, it is a violation of the separation of powers for a judge to control conditions of parole, Hines said.

Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, writing a separate opinion concurring with the majority, said the judge's decision "to allow Terry the freedom to enjoy the pleasures of Toombs County is an act of grace and mercy."

Because Terry remains an imminent threat to his ex-wife, "it would not be unreasonable for him to serve the rest of his life in prison," Sears wrote.

Justice Robert Benham dissented. Banishing Terry to Toombs, which is 200 miles away from Douglas, is unreasonable and at odds with any logical scheme of rehabilitation, Benham wrote.

"A reasonable person in Terry's situation, faced with being relegated for 10 years to a single county to which he has no ties or access to services and resources, would surely be compelled to leave the state," Benham said. This is "de facto banishment from this state, thereby violating Georgia's Constitution."

In May 1994, Terry violated a protective order forbidding him from approaching his ex-wife. He entered her home, then forced her into a car, made her drive down a dirt road, held scissors to her chest and threatened to kill both her and himself. She later escaped.

Terry was paroled in 2001 and allowed to begin a work-release program in Fulton County. But when officials realized he was banished only to Toombs, he was returned to prison and given a new parole date: June 2009.

Terry's 20-year prison sentence is expected to expire in 2014, if he gets credit for time served in jail awaiting his guilty plea. After his release, he would serve five years on parole, during which the parole board could impose restrictions on what he can and cannot do. If Terry violates those conditions, he could be returned to prison.

After 2014, Terry's 10-year probation sentence would begin, at which time he would be confined to Toombs.

In 2007, the General Assembly limited the extent to which judges can banish criminal defendants. Now, a judge must banish a defendant to at least an entire judicial circuit —- typically more than one county —- and only where programs are available to help the convict fulfill conditions of probation.

In other rulings issued Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court:

> Ruled that, under the Georgia Open Records Act, a police investigation remains pending until officially closed. Until then, police records are not public, the court held in a 4-3 ruling. In 2005, the Athens Banner-Herald requested records involving the unsolved murder 16 years ago of University of Georgia student Jennifer Stone. "It is a hard fact of law enforcement ... that crimes sometimes remain unsolved for years until a break in the case," the court said, ruling the newspaper cannot obtain the documents it asked for.

> Reinstated the death sentence against Andrew Allen Cook, condemned to die for the shooting deaths of Mercer University students Grant Patrick Hendrickson and Michele Lee Cartagena in 1995 in Monroe County. After the couple parked at midnight by Lake Juliette, Cook, then 21, walked up and shot them repeatedly with an AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun. A state court judge had previously thrown out Cook's death sentence on the grounds his trial lawyer did not adequately investigate a mental health defense.

> Upheld a lower court ruling that threw out the death sentence against Mark McPherson, who killed his girlfriend, Linda Ratcliff, in March 1998 in Floyd County. The state Supreme Court said McPherson should be granted a new sentencing trial because his trial lawyer had failed to present evidence of McPherson's abuse and neglect when he was a child, drug and alcohol addictions, and mental health problems.