Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Tyron Henry was tried by jury in 2016 and acquitted of malice murder, but found guilty of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the death of Michael Johnson. His amended motion for new trial was denied, and he appealed, asserting as his sole enumeration of error the trial court’s refusal to give his requested jury instructions on the affirmative defense of justification. In light of its recent decision in McClure v. Georgia, (Case No. S18G1599, decided Oct. 7, 2019), the Georgia Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred in refusing to give the requested instructions on justification by self-defense or the defense of others. Because the Court could not say it was highly probable that this error did not contribute to the jury’s verdicts, it reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Henry v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Roderick Thornton was convicted of malice murder and a firearm offense in connection with the 2014 shooting death of Jonathan Brady. On appeal, Thornton contended the trial court erred by improperly instructing the jury on aggravated assault and by failing to instruct on a witness’s motives in testifying and on accomplice corroboration. He also contended his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by not objecting to the trial court’s failure to give those charges and by eliciting certain testimony during his cross-examination of the lead detective on the case. Finding no merit to any of these claims, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Thornton v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Kenneth Powell was tried by jury and convicted of malice murder in the shooting death of Lionel Turner. Appellant contended the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, the trial court erred in instructing the jury, and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. Finding no merit to any of these claims, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Powell v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In February 2010, there was a fight at a nightclub in Albany, Georgia, followed by a shooting in a nearby parking lot. A patron of the club, LeSheldon Stanford, was killed in the shooting, and a security guard for the club, George Ferguson, was wounded. Three years later, Shanard Smith, Anthony Hawkins, and Shuntavious Seay were tried together on charges arising from the fight and the shooting, and a jury found them guilty of murder and other crimes. They appealed. With respect to Smith, the Georgia Supreme Court found no reversible error and affirm his convictions. As to Hawkins and Seay, the Court affirmed their convictions for aggravated assault, which were based on their participation in the fight inside the club. The Court reversed, however, their convictions for murder because the evidence at trial was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were parties to the shooting in the parking lot outside the club. View "Smith v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Leonardo Anderson was convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, and a firearm offense in connection with the 2014 shooting death of Arkeen Abron and the non-fatal shooting of Showkey Barnes. Appellant argued the trial court erred by admitting into evidence lead detective Jonathan Puhala’s video-recorded interview of Appellant’s girlfriend and failing to grant a mistrial after one of her statements in the interview was played for the jury; by excluding evidence of Barnes’s more-than-ten-year-old criminal convictions under OCGA 24-6-609 (b); by excluding evidence of a firearm found at the house where Abron and Barnes’s associate James Walker was staying; by allowing Detective Puhala to stay in the courtroom during the trial; and by declining to give a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter. Having reviewed the record and briefs, the Georgia Supreme Court found no reversible error, and affirmed. View "Anderson v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Abdullahi Mohamed was convicted of malice murder in connection with the stabbing death of fellow inmate Johnny Lee Johnson. Following the trial court’s denial of his motion for new trial, Mohamed appealed, contending that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction, the trial court erred in several instances, and that trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective The Georgia Supreme Court found evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Mohamed guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime of which he was convicted, and, accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying Mohamed’s motion for a directed verdict of acquittal. Furthermore, the Court determined Mohamed’s contention the trial court erred with respect to the admission of certain evidence and in its conduct of proceedings, had no merit. The Court found no ineffective assistance of trial counsel. View "Mohamed v. Georgia" on Justia Law

A grand jury indicted Cordalero Collier in 2008 for a number of offenses, including murder. Months later, with the assistance of counsel, Collier entered a negotiated guilty plea to felony murder and the trial court entered an order of nolle prosequi on the remaining counts. Following the plea hearing, the court sentenced Collier to serve life in prison. Ten years later in 2018, Collier filed a pro se motion for an out-of-time appeal, contending, inter alia, that his plea counsel was ineffective for failing to inform him of his right to an appeal. Collier contended that immediately after the superior court sentenced him and explained his right to appeal, he “informed his counsel that he wanted to withdraw his plea and file an appeal of his conviction.” The trial court, after reviewing “the record and applicable law,” summarily denied Collier’s motion. Review of Collier’s case lead the Georgia Supreme Court to reverse a long line of cases with respect to out-of-time appeals. The Court also overruled a “peculiar line of cases” where a criminal defendant’s right to appeal directly from a judgment entered on a guilty plea was qualified in scope. Because the trial court denied Collier’s motion for an out-of-time appeal without holding an evidentiary hearing, the Supreme Court could not determine from the appellate record whether Collier’s failure to timely pursue an appeal was actually the result of his counsel’s deficient performance. Moreover, it recognized that, given the clear, though incorrect, mandate of the case law overruled by this opinion, Collier did not have a full and fair opportunity to pursue his motion for an out-of-time appeal before the trial court, the State did not have a full and fair opportunity to raise defenses, and the trial court did not have the benefit of this opinion to guide its consideration of the parties’ evidence and arguments. Therefore, the previous order in this case was vacated and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Collier v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Matthew Leili was convicted of malice murder and associated offenses arising out of the death of his wife, Dominique Leili. On appeal, Appellant claimed the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress, the State was erroneously permitted to adduce other-acts testimony from his ex-wife, and that trial counsel was ineffective. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Leili v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In 2015, a grand jury indicted Ronnie Towns, charging him with murder and armed robbery. Two years later, Towns filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, alleging that the grand jury was unlawfully constituted because some of the grand jurors were not selected randomly. Following an evidentiary hearing, the trial court agreed that two of the grand jurors were not selected randomly, and it dismissed the indictment. The State appealed. Finding no reversible error, however, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Georgia v. Towns" on Justia Law

After he was tried and convicted of two vehicular homicides, Victor Mobley appealed, claiming that the trial court erred when it denied his pretrial motion to suppress evidence of data that law enforcement officers retrieved, without a warrant, from an electronic data recording device on his vehicle. Before the vehicles were removed from the scene of the collision, a supervisor in the Traffic Division of the Henry County Police Department, directed officers to retrieve any available data from the airbag control modules (ACM) on the two cars: a Charger and Corvette. An investigator entered the passenger compartments of both vehicles, attached a crash data retrieval (CDR) device to data ports in the cars, and used the CDR to download data from the ACMs. The data retrieved from the Charger indicated that, moments before the collision, Mobley was driving nearly 100 miles per hour. In denying the motion to suppress, the trial court had concluded that, whether or not the retrieval of the data was an unlawful search and seizure, the evidence was admissible in any event under the inevitable discovery doctrine. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed, one judge reasoning that the retrieval of data was not a search and seizure at all, and two judges agreeing with the trial court that the inevitable discovery doctrine applied. The Georgia Supreme Court concluded the trial court erred when it denied the motion to suppress. The State failed to lay an evidentiary foundation for the application of the inevitable discovery exception in this case. And the State has failed to identify any other established exception to the exclusionary rule that was applicable to the facts as shown by the record in this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals, therefore, was reversed. View "Mobley v. Georgia" on Justia Law