Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Pro se appellant Jeffrey McGee has appeared five times before the Georgia Supreme Court with respect to issues arising out of his criminal conviction for the 1999 shooting death of a police officer and related crimes. McGee entered a negotiated guilty Alford plea to murder, aggravated battery upon a police officer, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. In exchange, the State withdrew its intent to seek the death penalty. At the plea hearing, McGee stipulated to the statutory aggravating circumstance that the victim was engaged in the performance of his official duties at the time he was murdered, and McGee affirmatively indicated that he understood this would allow the court to impose a sentence of life without parole. The trial court sentenced McGee to life without parole for the guilty plea to murder, twenty years to serve concurrent with the life sentence for the guilty plea to aggravated battery, and five years to serve concurrent to the previous two sentences for the guilty plea to possession of a firearm. No timely direct appeal was pursued. McGee sought habeas corpus relief, which was denied. Pertinent to this appeal, McGee claimed he received ineffective assistance of counsel with regard to sentencing and sought resentencing. The Supreme Court determined McGee could not demonstrate the required prejudice for establishing constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel, and therefore, he could not prevail on an assertion that the trial court erred in denying an out-of-time appeal. View "McGee v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Rico Jones was found guilty of felony murder, five counts of cruelty to children in the second degree, and one count of possession of marijuana in connection with the drowning death of Camyria Arnold. Jones was babysitting the child, disciplining her for wetting the bed. After the children got out of the bath, Jones told Camyria to lie down for a nap. Jones then fell asleep for “five to ten minutes” before waking up to a sibling’s crying. When he woke up, Jones said, he noticed Camyria walking strangely, as though she were dizzy or drunk, and she looked drowsy. As Jones explained it, he thought Camyria might have swallowed some medicine, so he put his finger down her throat and she threw up a little bit of water and red fluid. Jones said that he then held Camyria under a cold shower for one or two seconds to try to wake her up. He said that Camyria seemed more alert for a few minutes, but then began acting drowsy again, so he rushed her to the hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital, Camyria was unresponsive, barely breathing, and had a core body temperature of 91 degrees, indicating that her body was shutting down and she was “about half dead.” Her eyes were fixed and dilated, suggesting significant brain injury. On appeal, Jones contended the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions and that the trial judge erred by expressing an opinion about the evidence in violation of OCGA 17- 8-57. The Georgia Supreme Court agreed the evidence was insufficient to support Jones’s convictions for cruelty to children in the second degree by smoking marijuana in the children’s presence, and reversed the convictions for those three counts. The evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdicts on the remaining counts, however, and the Court found no violation of OCGA 17-8-57. Jones’s remaining convictions were therefore affirmed. View "Jones v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In Cherokee Funding v. Ruth, 802 SE2d 865 (2017), the Georgia Court of Appeals decided that neither the Industrial Loan Act, nor the Payday Lending Act, applied to certain transactions in which a financing company provides funds to a plaintiff in a pending personal-injury lawsuit, the plaintiff is obligated to repay the funds with interest only if his lawsuit is successful, and his obligation to repay is limited to the extent of the damages that he recovers in the lawsuit. The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the decision in Cherokee Funding. Ronald Ruth and Kimberly Oglesby sustained injuries in automobile accidents, and they retained attorney Michael Hostilo to represent them in connection with lawsuits to recover damages for their injuries. While their lawsuits were pending, Ruth and Oglesby obtained funds from Cherokee Funding pursuant to financing agreements that Hostilo signed on their behalf. Cherokee Funding would provide funds to Ruth and Oglesby for personal expenses, and for the most part, their obligation to repay those funds was contingent upon the success of their lawsuits. If they recovered nothing, they would have no obligation to repay. If they recovered damages, however, they would be required to repay the amounts that Cherokee Funding had provided, as well as interest at a rate of 4.99 percent per month and various other “fees,” up to the amount of their recovery. In no event would they be required to pay Cherokee Funding any amounts in excess of their lawsuit recovery. In fact, Ruth and Oglesby would not have been in default under the financing agreements if they dismissed their underlying lawsuits and kept the money they received from Cherokee Funding. Cherokee Funding provided $5,550 to Ruth in several small installments between April 2012 and June 2013. Ruth settled his case for an unspecified amount; Cherokee Funding sought to recover more than $84,000 from Ruth pursuant to the terms of his agreement. Similarly, Oglesby settled her lawsuit for an unspecified amount, and money was deducted from her settlement proceeds to repay Cherokee Funding. The two then sued Cherokee Funding seeking relief for themselves and a putative class of similarly situated people to whom Cherokee Funding provided funds under agreements facilitated by Hostilo. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s determination that the Payday Lending Act nor the Industrial Loan act applied in this case. View "Ruth v. Cherokee Funding, LLC" on Justia Law

In May 2009, a jury found Billy Davis, Joseph Andrews, and Tremaine “Dick” Calhoun guilty of malice murder and felony murder in the shooting death of Cornelius Lowe. Davis was sentenced to life imprisonment. His second amended motion for new trial was denied, and he appealed, arguing the trial court erred in admitting a co-defendant’s statement, in the denial of his motion to sever, and by merging rather than vacating his felony murder conviction. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Davis’ convictions. View "Davis v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Tianna Kidd was convicted by jury in 1999 of felony murder, malice murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony in connection with the shooting and death of Tameka Woody. On appeal, Kidd contended the trial court erred by: (1) overruling her objection during the State’s opening argument; (2) denying her motion to suppress her in-custody statement to police; and (3) denying her objection to the State’s requested jury charge on “revenge for a prior wrong.” Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Kidd’s convictions. View "Kidd v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In June of 2015, cross-appellant Quantravious Holmes was convicted of malice murder and other offenses arising out of the shooting death of his friend Todd Burkes. The trial court granted Holmes’ motion for new trial on two grounds: on the ground that the court had erred by denying Holmes permission to enter into evidence portions of the recorded and transcribed statement of a person named Hamilton, who was not available to appear as a witness at trial; and on the general grounds as the “thirteenth juror.” The State appealed the order granting the motion for new trial, and Holmes was permitted to file an out-of-time notice of cross-appeal asserting insufficiency of the evidence to convict. After review, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected Holmes’ assertion that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction. The Court also vacated in part the trial court’s order granting a new trial and remanded the case to the trial court for further consideration. View "Georgia v. Holmes" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Manuel Lord for malice murder and related crimes. Appealing pro se, he appealed, raising “numerous enumerations of error.” Finding no reversible error, however, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Lord’s convictions. View "Lord v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Richard McWilliams appealed his convictions relating to the beating death of his girlfriend Kathleen Baxter. McWilliams challenged the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial for the various convictions, and the trial court committed multiple procedural errors, including the improper admission of extrinsic evidence, and in instructing the jury. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed McWilliams’ convictions. View "McWilliams v. Georgia" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Isaac Beasley of rape, aggravated sodomy, kidnapping with bodily injury, and aggravated assault. He was sentenced to 20 years for the rape offense, 10 years for aggravated sodomy, to be served consecutive to the rape sentence, life imprisonment for kidnapping with bodily injury, to be served concurrent with the sentence for rape, and 10 years for aggravated assault, to be served concurrent with the sentence for aggravated sodomy. Beasley’s direct appeal was affirmed by the Georgia Court of Appeals. Beasley then filed a pro se habeas petition in which he asserted he received ineffective assistance of appellate counsel for failure to raise on direct appeal Beasley’s claim that trial counsel failed to advise him that he faced a mandatory life sentence if convicted of the kidnapping charge. He claimed that if he had been properly advised by trial counsel, he would have accepted the State’s offer of a twenty year sentence, to serve ten years in prison, with respect to the rape charge and to nolle pros the remaining charges. After the habeas court hearing at which Beasley appeared pro se, but did not testify, Beasley obtained counsel who submitted a proposed order granting the habeas petition. The habeas court adopted counsel’s proposed order setting aside the convictions and sentences. The final order concluded that Beasley’s trial counsel provided deficient representation when he failed to advise Beasley that he would face a mandatory life sentence if convicted of kidnapping with bodily injury. The order also concluded that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue on appeal because there was a reasonable probability of a different result on appeal if the issue had been raised. The warden appealed. The Georgia Supreme Court vacated the habeas court’s order granting Beasley relief, finding the trial court needed to determine prejudice resulted from trial counsel’s deficient representation. On remand, the habeas court was instructed to apply the prejudice test for trial counsel’s performance set forth by the United States Supreme Court; only if both deficient representation by trial counsel and prejudice as a result of that deficiency were found would there be a reasonable probability that Beasley would have prevailed had he raised ineffective assistance of trial counsel on appeal. “And even if the habeas court reaches this conclusion and determines that Beasley was prejudiced by appellate counsel’s failure to raise ineffective assistance of trial counsel on direct appeal, ineffective assistance of appellate counsel requires a finding that counsel’s performance was deficient by his failure to raise that issue. Additionally, if the habeas court concludes both prongs of the ineffective assistance test for appellate counsel are met, then the habeas court must consider the remedy for that violation of Beasley’s Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.” View "Gramiak v. Beasley" on Justia Law

Darron Cato appealed his convictions for felony murder and a firearm offense stemming from the death of T’Shanerka Smith. Cato argues the trial court committed plain error when it instructed the jury on the commission of aggravated assault, the predicate offense for the felony murder charge, in a manner not charged in the indictment. Cato also argued his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to present a complete alibi defense. Because any error in the aggravated assault instruction was harmless, and because Cato could not show that trial counsel’s failure to call Cato’s father as an alibi witness was constitutionally deficient performance, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. View "Cato v. Georgia" on Justia Law