Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant challenged the probate court's declaratory judgment interpreting her father's will to require equal distribution of his personal property and residual estate among his eight children. The court held that the probate court correctly ruled that appellant acted beyond her discretion in her distribution of the assets to date. Therefore, the court found no error, because under the correct interpretation of Items III and IV of the will, appellant did not have the discretion to distribute the bulk of the estate to herself to the exclusion of her seven siblings. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of murder, felony murder, cruelty to children, and aggravated battery for the death of his four-month-old baby. Defendant appealed, contending, among other things, that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict and that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges for which he was convicted. The court held that defendant failed to support his contention of ineffective assistance of counsel with any evidence other than his own speculation and, as such, his argument in this regard was rejected. The court further held that there was no error in the admission of evidence of defendant's prior difficulty in which he squeezed and threw the baby at his mother where the evidence was properly admitted to show defendant's bent of mind towards and course of conduct with the baby. The court further held that the photographs and testimony regarding the baby's prior healing rib fracture both served as part of the basis of the medical expert's opinion regarding the mechanism of death and was relevant to prior difficulty testimony showing that defendant had improperly squeezed the baby in the past. Therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting this relevant evidence. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant appealed his conviction for felony murder, theft by receiving stolen property, felony fleeing and attempting to elude police, and aggravated assault. On appeal, defendant contended, among other things, that the trial court's instructions to the jury were erroneous. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges for which he was convicted. The court rejected defendant's contention that the trial court erroneously included an improper definition of the term "collateral" during a re-charge to the jury regarding felony murder where it was clear that the trial court gave jurors the pattern charge on felony murder at least three times. The court also held that the trial court did not err in denying a request to instruct the jury on a lesser-included offense which was not before it. The court further held that the trial court's statement regarding the existence of a scrivener's error in the indictment referred only to the incomplete count and did not contain an expression or intimation regarding the remaining counts. The court rejected defendant's contention that his conviction for felony murder based on aggravated assault must be overturned because the trial court omitted the definition of simple assault in its initial charge to the jury and in a subsequent re-charge. Therefore, the court held that, viewing the charges as a whole, there was no error. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery, and other offenses in connection with the killing of the victim and his son. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges for which he was convicted. The court held that the trial court did not err by allowing the prosecutor to read defendant's entire criminal history into evidence because the basis for admitting this evidence was to disprove defendant's lie by omission. The court also held that the trial court did not err in refusing trial counsel's request for jury instructions on the defenses of self-defense and justification where the "slight evidence" standard in Davis v. State did not warrant an additional jury charge of self-defense and defendant was not entitled to an instruction on the broader defense of justification. The court rejected defendant's arguments regarding ineffective assistance of counsel. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

The Court of Appeals held that Victor Bruscato was entitled to continue pursing a claim for medical malpractice against his psychiatrist, Dr. Derek O'Brien, based at least in part on an agreement that Bruscato brutally killed his mother as a result of deficient psychiatric treatment from O'Brien. Following the murder, Bruscato brought a malpractice claim against O'Brien and the trial court granted summary judgment for O'Brien, ruling that, among other things, public policy would not allow Bruscato to benefit from his wrongdoings. The Court of Appeals reversed and this court subsequently granted certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals properly ruled that Bruscato's claim for damages was not barred by Georgia public policy. After reviewing the case, the court held that the public policy issues were correctly examined and determined by the Court of Appeals and generally adopted the Court of Appeals' analysis where an individual's psychiatric disorder prevented him from exercising a reasonable degree of care to prevent himself from taking improper and illegal actions. In this case, a question of fact remained as to whether Bruscato knowingly committed a wrongful act because there was considerable question regarding his sanity and competency at the time the wrongful act was committed. As of this time, it could not be said that, should Bruscato's claim against O'Brien be successful, he might profit from knowingly committing a wrongful act. Thus, O'Brien's motion for summary judgment based on such an argument could not succeed. Moreover, Bruscato's lawsuit was not wholly related to his act of murder and it was not wholly designed to profit from that act where Bruscato was seeking damages from the allegedly improper treatment he received from O'Brien. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of murder and appealed his conviction, arguing that the evidence against him was insufficient, that the long delay in his appeal violated his due process rights, and that his trial counsel's performance and the trial court's self-defense jury instruction was inadequate. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges for which he was convicted. The court also held that the length of delay in this appeal was excessive but the delay did not violate defendant's due process rights because the Chatman v. Mancill factors all weighed against him. The court further held that it could not say that trial counsel's decision not to seek admission of other portions of defendant's statement had a reasonable probability of affecting the result of the trial and it could not conclude that trial counsel's decision not to cross-examine a government agent at issue was either deficient or prejudicial. The court finally held that the trial court did not give an inadequate jury instruction where there was no requirement that the trial court summarize for the jury all of the circumstances surrounding the shooting. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the charges for which he was convicted. The court also held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's claim that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated; the trial court did not err when it denied defendant's ineffective assistance of counsel claim; the trial court did not err when it denied defendant's motion for mistrial or denied his motion for a new trial; and defendant's due process rights were not violated when the trial court adopted the State's proposed order denying the motion for new trial verbatim. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

After receiving complaints about the alleged misconduct of Catoosa County Magistrate Court Judge Anthony Peters, the Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) initiated an investigation and subsequently filed formal charges to have Judge Peters permanently removed from his position as a judge and barred from ever holding or seeking elected or appointed judicial office in the State of Georgia. The court agreed with the recommendation of the JQC where Judge Peters, among other things, obtained and consumed marijuana at least once a week from March to May of 2010; inappropriately used his judicial office to advance the personal interests of a family member; pointed a firearm at himself and indicated to another Magistrate Judge that he was not afraid to die; appeared on a local cable television show, made derogatory remarks about the Chief Magistrate Judge, publicly disclosed that he had filed a complaint against the Chief Magistrate Judge, and displayed a photograph of an individual and identified the individual by name as a confidential informant; made a phone call to a local cable television show after initially trying to disguise his voice with multiple foreign accents and made certain comments; and refused to work certain hours.

Defendant was convicted of malice murder, felony murder during the commission of a conspiracy to commit trafficking in cocaine, the underlying conspiracy offense itself, trafficking in a quantity of cocaine separate and distinct from that involved in the conspiracy count, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Defendant appealed from his convictions. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. The court held, however, that the underlying conspiracy merged into the felony murder conviction. Therefore, the trial court erred in entering a separate judgment of conviction for the underlying conspiracy. The court held that defendant's claim under Massiah v. United States had not been waived. The court rejected, however, defendant's contention that the testimony of his cellmate regarding inculpatory statements allegedly made by defendant while they were cellmates for four days violated his Sixth Amendment right to counsel where the cellmate was not a professional informant in the sense that he was paid or in any way necessarily engaged by the State. The court also held that the trial court did not abuse its broad discretion by denying a continuance and refusing the harsh remedy of evidence exclusion for the untimeliness of discovery. The court further held that the trial court did not wholly fail to comply with USCR 32.1's seven day notice requirement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment in part and reversed in part.

Defendant was convicted of malice murder in the stabbing death of his wife. On appeal, defendant claimed that the trial court improperly denied his motion for mistrial and erroneously failed to give his requested jury charge on involuntary manslaughter. The court held that there was no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision that a mistrial was not necessary where the trial court did not hear any noises emanating from members of the victim's family in the courtroom and where the trial court was in a unique position to observe the jurors and perceived no impact on them. The court also held that defendant did not request a curative instruction or seek any further action from the court and therefore, he could not complain about the alleged omission on appeal. The court further held that the doctrine of "imperfect self-defense" requested by defendant did not "fit within the definition of voluntary manslaughter in this State." The court finally held that, where defendant did not object to the trial court's intention to send a redacted copy of the indictment to the jury room when the court invited objections from counsel, defendant waived this claim. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.