Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Latoya Bray filed an action against sheriff’s lieutenant Stormie Watkins, in her official and individual capacities, for damages allegedly caused by her failure to activate a tornado warning system while working in a county emergency center. The trial court granted summary judgment to Watkins, concluding in part that the public duty doctrine negated any duty owed to Bray. In a split decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed: the majority opinion, the specially concurring opinion, and the dissenting opinion disagreed about whether the trial court erred by not considering whether sovereign immunity barred the official-capacity claim and whether the official capacity claim needed to be remanded for the trial court to resolve the sovereign immunity issue in the first instance. In her petition for certiorari to the Georgia Supreme Court, Bray contended: (1) the Court of Appeals erred by concluding that the public duty doctrine foreclosed her lawsuit; and (2) the court’s discussion concerning sovereign immunity was “misplaced.” Because the applicability of the public duty doctrine was a merits question, the Supreme Court determined the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s ruling on the official-capacity claims on the ground that the public duty doctrine barred all of Bray’s claims without considering the threshold jurisdictional question of whether sovereign immunity barred Bray’s claims against Watkins in her official capacity. The Court therefore granted the petition for writ of certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals’ opinion, and remanded this case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings. View "Bray, et al. v. Watkins" on Justia Law

Appellant Larry Thomas appealed his convictions for felony murder in connection with the vehicular deaths of Krystof Krawczynski and Elizbieta Gurtler-Krawczynski. On appeal, Appellant contends that the trial court erred in sentencing him for two counts of felony murder (Counts 1 and 2) rather than for two counts of homicide by vehicle (Counts 7 and 8) because both sets of charges were predicated on fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, and thus the rule of lenity required that he receive the lesser penalty. This argument, however, was foreclosed by the Georgia Supreme Court's decision in Sosebee v. Georgia, __ Ga. __, __ (1) (__ SE2d __) (2023) As explained in Sosebee, the felony-murder and homicide-by-vehicle statutes “are not ambiguous and do not require different punishments for the same conduct” because “[t]he offense of felony murder . . . criminalizes causing the death of a human being ‘in the commission of a felony,’ but the offense of homicide by vehicle in the first degree under OCGA § 40-6-393 (a) does not.” Accordingly, as in Sosebee, “[t]he rule of lenity simply has no application in this case, and this claim of error fails.” View "Thomas v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Armetrius Neason was convicted of malice murder and a related charge in connection with the shooting death of Teresa Carter. On appeal, Neason contended the evidence was insufficient as a matter of federal constitutional due process. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Neason v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Pacer Sebastian Carter appealed his convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the 2017 shooting death of Aramis O’Brad Peterson. Carter argued the trial court erred in omitting a jury instruction on the statutory requirement of corroboration of accomplice testimony in felony cases, and that his trial attorney rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to it. In addition, Carter argued his attorney was ineffective in admitting a document entitled “Proof of Incarceration.” Because both claims of trial court error were subject to review only for plain error, and Carter failed to carry his burden of showing either plain error or the ineffective assistance of his trial counsel, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the judgments of conviction. View "Carter v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Kiresa Cooper was convicted by jury of malice murder, feticide, and other related crimes in connection with the shooting death of Auriel Callaway, who was pregnant at the time she died. On appeal, Cooper argued: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support her malice murder conviction; and (2) that her trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to twenty portions of the lead detective’s testimony on various grounds, such as inadmissible hearsay, confrontation violations, improper opinion and speculation, and failure to properly authenticate evidence. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Cooper v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Cody Regan appealed his sentence of 20 years in prison, with one year to serve, for one count of felony child molestation, following his non-negotiated guilty plea. Regan argued he improperly received a felony sentence for child molestation, in violation of his rights to equal protection under the United States and Georgia Constitutions, because he was similarly situated to people receiving misdemeanor sentences for aggravated child molestation. Regan also argued his sentence constituted cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the federal and state constitutions, because his sentence was grossly disproportionate to his crime. After review, the Georgia Supreme Court held that the sentencing scheme for child molestation set out at OCGA § 16-6-4 (b), as applied to Regan, violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. These sentencing provisions provided for a misdemeanor sentence where the victim is at least 14 years old (among other conditions), but the misdemeanor sentencing provisions for aggravated child molestation provided for a misdemeanor sentence where the victim is at least 13 years old. Because the victim in this case was 13 years old, Regan did not qualify for the misdemeanor sentence he would have received if he had instead committed aggravated child molestation. "There is no rational basis for such disparate treatment." The Court therefore reversed the trial court’s order denying Regan's motion in arrest of judgment, vacated the sentence, and remanded the case for Appellant to be resentenced for misdemeanor child molestation under OCGA § 16-6-4 (b) (2). Because the Court resolved Regan's challenges to his sentence on federal equal-protection grounds, it did not reach his cruel-and-unusual-punishment claims. View "Regan v. Georgia" on Justia Law

The issue presented for the Georgia Supreme Court's review centered on whether Larry Jenkins’ unequivocal statement that he would not talk to law enforcement without a lawyer was a valid invocation of his Miranda rights. The trial court concluded that the statement came at a time that Jenkins was not being interrogated and at which no interrogation was imminent, and thus it was “anticipatory” and invalid under a line of precedent from several federal courts of appeals. The Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred by extending that precedent to the circumstances in this case. The Court found that at the time that Jenkins invoked his Miranda rights, he (1) was in custody for the crimes at issue in this case, (2) had been given Miranda warnings, (3) had already been subjected to custodial interrogation by law enforcement on the way to the jail, and (4) was going through the booking process. "Whether or not the booking process itself was custodial interrogation, the facts of this case show that a reasonable person in Jenkins’s position would have believed that interrogation was at least imminent." Accordingly, the Supreme Court held his unequivocal invocation was valid, the State’s failure to honor it rendered his custodial statements inadmissible, and the State failed to show that the use of that inadmissible evidence was harmless. Accordingly, the Court reversed Jenkins’s convictions; because the evidence against him was constitutionally sufficient, he could be retried. View "Jenkins v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellants Joshua Rooks and Quatez Clark were convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the 2016 shooting death of Christopher Dean. Rooks contended the evidence presented at trial was legally insufficient to support his convictions and that the trial court erred by failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal. Clark similarly contended the trial court erred by failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal on certain counts; he also claimed the court erred by failing to grant his motion for new trial on the “general grounds” set forth in OCGA §§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21 and by admitting under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b) evidence showing that he participated in another murder 11 days after Dean’s murder and that he committed marijuana- and firearm-related crimes about two months after Dean’s murder. Finding no reversible error in either case, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed convictions in both cases. View "Rooks v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Jessica Eubanks was convicted by jury of felony murder. Eubanks lived with her boyfriend, Shawn Hughes, and Shawn’s sister, Amy Hughes, who had severe developmental disabilities. Eubanks used heroin and methamphetamine and kept a large supply of heroin in the home. One evening when Shawn was out, Eubanks invited two people to the home to buy heroin. During the transaction, which she conducted in the main part of the home, some of the drug spilled “all over the place” and Eubanks tried to clean it up. Then she went out, leaving Amy home alone. The next morning Amy was found dead of heroin toxicity. Eubanks appealed. "Although Eubanks’s conviction tests the limits our felony-murder statute places on that offense," the Georgia Supreme Court concluded that based on precedent and the unusual facts of this case that the evidence was sufficient to authorize her conviction. "Eubanks’s possession of heroin with intent to distribute was dangerous to human life under the circumstances of this case because it was foreseeable that keeping a large amount of a deadly drug in a home where a highly vulnerable person lived, and engaging in drug transactions in areas that person could freely access, could lead to that person being fatally exposed to the drug." Finding no other reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of conviction. View "Eubanks v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Deveric Hardy was convicted of malice murder for the November 2016 shooting death of Kyree Smith. He appealed that conviction, arguing that his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to introduce evidence that Smith had a violent character and by failing to request a jury instruction on accomplice corroboration. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Hardy's judgment of conviction. View "Hardy v. Georgia" on Justia Law