Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant Darien Meheux appealed his 2014 conviction for the malice murder of Jasmine Benjamin, claiming the trial court erred in admitting a handwritten statement and that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective. Because Meheux, acting pro se, filed a motion for new trial while he was still represented by trial counsel and his amended motion for new trial filed by counsel was untimely, the Georgia Supreme Court determined the trial court should have dismissed the motion rather than deciding it on the merits, and therefore vacated the judgment and remanded the case with direction to the trial court to dismiss the motion. View "Meheux v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Roshun Gray was convicted of malice murder and two firearm offenses in connection with the 2012 shooting death of Ferderian Bennett. On appeal, Appellant contended he was legally incompetent to stand trial and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to investigate his incompetency. Finding both of those claims as meritless, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Gray v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Otis Hill shot Christina and Marshall Wellington when they were unable to pay a drug debt. Christina died; Marshall survived but lost an eye. Hill and Aviance Marshall, who drove Hill and the Wellingtons to the location of the shooting, were charged with malice murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and related offenses. Hill was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Christina, kidnapping, battering, and attempting to murder Marshall, and a weapons charge. On appeal, Hill argued the evidence was insufficient as to kidnapping. In addition, Hill contended the trial court erred: in using a deficient master jury list; in failing to determine whether a juror was proficient in English; in instructing the jury regarding note taking; in admitting evidence of cell site location information, the effects of cocaine on memory, and witness intimidation; in excluding evidence of the maximum penalty Aviance faced; in instructing the jury regarding the reasonable-doubt standard; and in denying his motion for a new trial on the general grounds. Hill also claimed he received ineffective assistance of counsel. The Georgia Supreme Court found none of Hill's enumerations of error and affirmed, but vacated in part to correct sentencing errors. View "Hill v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Antavian Love was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Enrique Trejo. On appeal, Love, who was 16 years old at the time the crimes were committed, argued the trial court erred in denying the motion to suppress his statements to law enforcement and in sentencing him as a juvenile to serve life without parole. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. View "Love v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant James Lowery challenged his 2017 conviction for felony murder and other crimes in connection with the death of Montgomery County, Georgia Sheriff Ladson O’Connor, who was killed in a vehicular accident while pursuing Appellant. Appellant argued the evidence was insufficient to support his felony murder conviction; the trial court failed to apply the correct standard in denying his motion for new trial on the general grounds; that his pretrial statements to investigators were inadmissible because they were not knowingly and voluntarily made; and that the trial court erred in excluding evidence of Sheriff O’Connor’s character. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Lowery v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Anthony Lumpkin and Eddie Green were convicted by jury of murder and other offenses in connection with the shooting death of Nicholas Jackson II. Both appellants argued the trial court erred by denying their motions to suppress evidence seized during a traffic stop. In addition, Lumpkin challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented against him on the armed robbery count and the felony murder count predicated on armed robbery, and Green argued the trial court erred by not admitting certain evidence pursuant to OCGA 24-8-804. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed conviction, but vacated in part to correct a sentencing error with respect to Lumpkin. View "Lumpkin v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Tomari Jackson drowned to death while on a school trip to Belize. His mother, Adell Forbes, individually and as administrator of Jackson’s estate (collectively, “Forbes”), filed a wrongful death action in Georgia. Because Forbes filed the action outside the applicable limitation period provided for under Belize law but within the period that would be applicable under Georgia law, the issue presented for the Georgia Supreme Court's review entered on whether Georgia’s or Belize’s limitation period applied to that wrongful death action. The Court of Appeals held that Georgia law, and not Belize law, controlled the limitation period governing the wrongful death claim. The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed. View "Auld v. Forbes" on Justia Law

Lowndes County, Georgia sued the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (“DCA”) and members of the DCA board over DCA’s application of the Service Delivery Strategy Act (“SDS Act”). The SDS Act authorized and promoted coordination and comprehensive planning among municipal and county governments to “minimize inefficiencies resulting from duplication of services and competition between local governments and to provide a mechanism to resolve disputes over local government service delivery, funding equity, and land use.” Lowndes County and the cities within the County (“the Cities”) operated under a service delivery strategy agreement implemented in 2008. In November 2016, when DCA had not received communication from the County and Cities that they had agreed either to revise their Strategy Agreement or to extend the existing one, DCA notified the County and Cities that they would be ineligible for state-administered financial assistance, grants, loans, or permits until DCA could verify that Lowndes County and the Cities had done so. The County sued the mayors and councils of the Cities, DCA, and DCA commissioner Camila Knowles, seeking declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief, as well as specific performance, arguing the 2008 Strategy Agreement remained in effect, and that the County and Cities remained eligible for state-administered financial assistance. Knowles and the DCA board members moved to dismiss on the basis that sovereign immunity barred the claims for injunctive and declaratory relief. They argued that those claims actually sought to order Knowles and the DCA board members to take action in their official capacities. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court found the Georgia Constitution allowed only the General Assembly to waive the State’s sovereign immunity. "But that rule requires waiver only for claims that sovereign immunity actually bars." The Court found that one narrow limitation on such claims was that the State could not be the “real party in interest.” The Court of Appeals held that the relief sought here by a Lowndes County would actually control the actions of the State and potentially affect state expenditures; the Court of Appeals thus concluded that the State was the real party in interest and that sovereign immunity barred the county’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against the state officials in their individual capacities. "But the real-party-in-interest limitation is not so broad; our case law has applied it primarily when the claimed relief would control or take the State’s real property or interfere with contracts to which the State is a party. No such relief is sought here, and applying the limitation as broadly as the State seeks would eviscerate Georgians’ well- established rights to seek redress against their government." The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals and held that sovereign immunity did not bar the claims at issue in this case. View "Board of Commissioners of Lowndes County v. Mayor & Council of City of Valdosta et al." on Justia Law

Thomas Edvalson was tried by jury and found guilty of 22 counts of sexual exploitation of children, for possession of 11 digital images depicting a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. With respect to each digital image, he was found guilty of both possession and possession with intent to distribute. At sentencing, the trial court merged the "simple" possession counts under OCGA 16-12-100(b)(8) into the counts of possession with intent to distribute under subsection (b)(5), and sentenced Edvalson on the remaining 11 counts to a total of 60 years, with 19 to be served in prison. Edvalson appealed, asserting, among other enumerations of error, that the trial court erred in failing to merge his convictions into a single count. The Court of Appeals affirmed in an unpublished opinion, concluding that OCGA 16-12-100(b)(5) permitted a defendant to be separately convicted and sentenced for each of the images in his possession. The Georgia Supreme Court granted review to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in failing to merge the remaining 11 convictions under (b)(5) into a single conviction. In accordance with Coates v. Georgia, 818 SE2d 622 (2018), the Court concluded the plain language of OCGA 16-12-100(b)(5), interpreted in the context of the entire statute, was unambiguous and permitted only one prosecution and conviction for a single act of possession of child pornography, regardless of the number of images depicted. The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Edvalson v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Property owners and the contractors they hired to build a house had a dispute. The Georgia Supreme Court granted the owners' request for review to consider: (1) whether anticipated profits could be included in a materialmen’s lien; and (2) if so, whether the improper inclusion of such profits rendered the entire lien void. Because the Court of Appeals correctly held that anticipated profits could not be included in a lien and that their inclusion does not invalidate the entire lien, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Massey et al. v. Duke Builders, Inc." on Justia Law