The Court ruled in Banks v Manchester that case law cannot be copyrighted. The ruling was that writings by a government official, acting in their official capacity, are owned by the public and cannot have copyright protection. That case also brought up a question relevant to this case. Under federal law citizens and residents may hold copyright. Georgia is probably neither, and therefore arguably cannot hold copyright.
In the Banks case, the state had contracted with someone else to produce indexes, etc. The deal was that if the company wrote these extra pieces, they would have copyright protectionfor a couple of years - they didn't get paid to write them, but were allowed exclusive right to sell their version with indexes, etc. The indexes and such were the original work of that citizen. That original work, but not the law itself, could be copyright the author.The finding in this Georgia case may hinge on who wrote the annotations. If government officials wrote them, it's public domain. If a private company wrote the annotations in order to sell them, they may be allowed to do so. HOWEVER, the fact that the STATE is suing indicates the state claims copyright for themselves, and the state will probably lose.
Also, the Court will probably want the law to be accessible, so they'll likely find some logic to rule against the state. Consider the Obamacare care case. The court ruled that the IRS "penalty" for not having insurance is a tax, and therefore within the powers granted to the feds, while also ruling is NOT a tax, and therefore didn't have to originate in the house of representatives. So in the very same ruling they said "it's a tax ... it's not a tax". Translation: we don't want to go head to head with the Obama administration on this one. They sometimes FIND a way to rule whichever way they want to rule, whether of makes any sense or not.