DAWSON COUNTY, Ga. — Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch was arrested again, months after he was suspended for driving under the influence in a county vehicle.
According to the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office, Couch was pulled over for failing to maintain his lane.
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During the stop, deputies in Dawson County found Couch was operating the vehicle on a limited driving permit, outside of the allowed conditions. He was cited for violating those conditions and failing to maintain his lane.
Couch was booked and posted bond on Monday night, the sheriff’s office said.
Couch was previously arrested by members of the Georgia State Patrol after Hall County deputies followed him to his home while he drove erratically.
The GSP report on the incident said Couch had three times the legal limit for alcohol in his system after consuming multiple Four Loko drinks while driving his sheriff’s office truck.
He’d been drinking since 6 a.m. that morning, according to the report.
Gov. Brian Kemp had Couch temporarily suspended from office during a disciplinary hearing.
In response to Channel 2’s Candace McCowan, Couch’s attorney Blake Poole issued the following statement, shared in full:
Last night, Sheriff Couch was arrested in Hall County on charges of failure to maintain lane and violation of the conditions of a limited driving permit.
To be clear, the Sheriff was sober last night and has remained sober since his February arrest. He has complied fully with every condition imposed by the court system, including the random testing required as a condition of his bond, and has passed every test administered to him. He has continued to obey every regulation he has been clearly instructed to follow.
The limited-permit charge is a different matter. It is the direct product of a systemic failure within the Georgia Department of Driver Services. At one point DDS told him his license would remain valid until May 27, 2026. Another time DDS told him he needed a limited permit to drive. And just last week, DDS wrote that he was not required to have a limited permit at all. These contradictions appear to confuse the local DDS personnel as much as anyone else, which is precisely the problem.
Sheriff Couch does in fact hold a limited permit. But the conflicting DDS correspondence did not indicate that there were any limitations on where he could lawfully travel. He cannot be expected to comply with conditions DDS has never clearly communicated.
Compounding the problem, DDS’s records system did not display accurate information in the Criminal Justice Information System for deputies to view on the side of the road. It took multiple attempts by multiple officers to even verify the existence of the permit. Accountability is meaningful only when the person being held accountable can understand how they will be held accountable. The correspondence DDS generates is, at times, incomprehensible even to its own staff.
This is not a complaint about the people working at DDS. It is a call for the State to fix a system that produces contradictory instructions and unreliable records. The sad reality is that this happens to ordinary Georgians every single day, without the visibility to call attention to it. Perhaps this case will prompt a review of DDS’s regulations and correspondence so that this does not continue to happen to Georgians throughout the State.
Sheriff Couch is presumed innocent and is entitled to the full protections of the law. We ask the public and the press to allow the legal process to proceed without prejudgment.
No further comment will be made at this time.
— Blake Poole, attorney
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