Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Husband and wife were married in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and two daughters were born in Georgia during the marriage. After husband and wife divorced, wife was awarded custody of the children and husband subsequently appealed an order that denied the motion to vacate the 2006 judgment of divorce and award of child custody and an order modifying the child custody order to this court contending that the court had subject-matter jurisdiction because husband had sought to vacate the judgment of divorce. The court held that husband's challenges to the divorce court's jurisdiction were rendered moot by the trial court's entry of the 2010 custody modification and parenting plan order, where it was uncontested that the children resided in DeKalb County, as did the wife, and husband submitted himself to personal jurisdiction of the court when he filed his modification pleading and appeared for the hearing. The court also held that the trial court did not err in making jurisdictional findings regarding the children's home state where the trial court did not find any authority that alleged such findings were required by the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act and where the trial court did not decline jurisdiction on the basis of being an inconvenient forum or stay the matter because of another custody action in a foreign jurisdiction.

Appellant was convicted of murder and appealed the propriety of the trial court's dismissal of his appeal from the trial court's order for failure to pay appeal costs. At issue was whether the trial court erred in dismissing appellant's appeal for failure to pay costs because he asked the trial court to allow him to proceed in forma pauperis. The court held that the record conclusively revealed that appellant could not have suffered any harm from such error where, even if the trial court had not dismissed his appeal, appellant's appeal would have failed as a matter of law. In any event, appellant provided no basis for a finding of any inadequacy in his indictment or his conviction, which further revealed that the arguments that he raised with respect to his motion in arrest of judgment were without merit.

This appeal involved a constitutional challenge to the 2008 Georgia Charter Schools Commission Act ("Act"), OCGA 20-2-2081 et seq. Appellants, local school systems whose 2009 and 2010 complaints were consolidated by the trial court, contended, inter alia, that the Act was unconstitutional because it violated the "special schools" provision in the Georgia Constitution of 1983. The court held that the Act was unconstitutional where the constitution embodied the fundamental principle of exclusive local control of general primary and secondary public education ("K-12") and where the Act clearly and palpably violated Art. VIII, Sec. V, Par. VII(a) by authorizing a state commission to establish competing state-created general K-12 schools under the guise of being "special schools." The court's holding rendered it unnecessary to address appellants' remaining constitutional challenges to the Act.

Appellant filed a negligence action against a police officer, in his individual and official capacity, and the City of Waynesboro after appellant was injured when the officer, while conducting a routine patrol, drove his police cruiser into the back of appellant's vehicle. At issue was whether the tort immunity for local government employees for situations covered by OCGA 36-92-3(a) was limited to only those covered situations in which the local government entity remained liable. Also at issue was whether the construction of the statute applied by the trial court rendered the statute unconstitutional because it violated the Georgia Constitution's guaranty of the right to trial by jury by foreclosing entirely any remedy for appellant for her injuries arising out of the underlying tort. The court affirmed summary judgment for appellees and held that, by the passage of section 36-92-3(a), the legislature intended to foreclose all recovery against municipal employees for torts committed within the scope of employment and involving the use of a covered motor vehicle. The court also held that the statute was not unconstitutional where appellant's failure to send ante litem notice, and not section 36-92-3(a), was why she found herself without a remedy; where the issue of immunity for the individual government employee was moot when appellant's constitutional right to a jury trial was satisfied by her ability to seek redress and recover from the city; and where the issue of whether the statutory cap on damages was unconstitutional, was now moot.

Husband and wife executed a will in 1980, which was expressly identified as being "joint and mutual," bequeathing all of their property to each other as the survivor in fee simple and at the death of the survivor, the residue of the estate was to be divided equally among husband's two children, David and Darrell, and wife's two children, Deana and Diane. After husband died in 2005, wife probated the 1980 will, became the executor, and conveyed husband's estate to herself. In November 2005, wife executed another will which could, at her death, leave 20% of the estate to appellant, Deana, and the residue to the children of Deana and Diane. Deana then obtained wife's power of attorney and conveyed all of her mother's real estate to her two children and to appellee, Diane's child. When wife died in 2008, Deana offered the 2005 will for probate and Diane filed a caveat and also sought to petition the 1980 will as the last will and testament. The court held that the trial court did not err when it applied the law in place before the 1998 probate code was adopted to determine whether husband and wife had a contract not to revoke the 1980 will; when it concluded that the 1980 will was joint and mutual and that husband and wife had an enforceable contract not to revoke the 1980 will; when it did not in fact find that the fee simple conveyance to wife was a marital trust; when it made no rulings as to whether wife's 2005 will was a contract, and as such, that issue could not be raised on appeal; and when the 1980 will specifically provided that the residue of the survivor's estate was to be divided equally among the four children. Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court's order that the 1980 will would be specifically enforced by equity.

Appellant was convicted of felony murder and two counts of aggravated assault in connection with the shooting death of a three-year-old. Appellant appealed from the denial of his motion for new trial arguing that the trial court erred by failing to charge the jury on voluntary manslaughter. The court affirmed the judgment and held that the trial court did not err by refusing to charge the jury on voluntary manslaughter where appellant's testimony showed that he did not shoot the child in the heat of passion because he was not upset and fired out of fear to defend his and his mother's life and where the testimony of the child's parents demonstrated, at most, that appellant could have opened fired in response to their heated or angry statements, which as a matter of law, could not constitute "serious provocation" within the meaning of OCGA 16-5-2(a).

Appellant was convicted of two counts of malice murder and various related offenses in connection with the asphyxiation death of an individual and the bludgeoning death of her daughter. Appellant appealed certain jury instructions and asserted that he was improperly denied a hearing on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court affirmed the convictions and held that it found highly probable that the erroneous failure to charge on impeachment by proof of a conviction for a crime of moral turpitude did not contribute to the verdict; that the trial court's jury instruction on theft presented no ground for reversal; and that the trial court did not err in denying his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel without holding an evidentiary hearing where appellant waived his claim when he did not argue it, or offer any evidence in support of it, despite being afforded the opportunity to do so. The court remanded for resentencing and held that, under the circumstances, the three additional life sentences for felony murder were illegal and could not stand.

Defendant was charged with malice murder and concealing the death of another in connection with the killing of his girlfriend. The court granted defendant an interlocutory appeal from an order of the superior court which denied his motion to suppress certain statements he made to law enforcement officers in order to consider whether the superior court erred in concluding that defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights was knowing and voluntary in light of the evidence of his mental disabilities. The court held that the superior court did not err where there was evidence to support the determination that, despite some mild mental impairment, defendant was capable of understanding his Miranda rights, including his right to counsel, and that he never invoked this right.

Defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of his motion in arrest of judgment were he was convicted of felony murder and other crimes where the motion asserted that defendant's indictment was substantively defective because it did not set forth the essential elements of the charged offense. At issue was whether the untimely filing of a motion in arrest of judgment precluded a defendant from appealing the trial court's ruling on the motion. The court affirmed the denial of the motion and held that the untimely filing of a motion in arrest of judgment in the trial court was not a defect in appellate jurisdiction that would subject an appeal from the trial court's ruling on the motion to dismissal, as would an untimely filed notice of appeal, and that instead, the untimeliness of the motion was simply a defect that limited the trial court's authority to grant the motion.

Appellant appealed the trail court's dismissal of her action contesting the outcome of the August 10, 2010 Stewart County primary election in which she was an unsuccessful candidate. Appellant filed the election contest on August 18, the general election took place on November 2, and the candidate who defeated appellant in the primary was certified as the winner of the election. The court held that appellant's appeal was moot where an election contest challenging the results of a primary election became moot after the general election had taken place and where appellant did not quickly seek statutorily-sanctioned supersedeas and/or an expedited appeal.