Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In 2004, appellant Jessie Mercer was convicted of the kidnapping of Richard Love and his wife, Parchando, as well as armed robbery and two counts of aggravated assault. On appeal, appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction for kidnapping Mr. Love, but not for kidnapping Mrs. Love. Specifically, he contended that the State failed to prove the element of asportation, but the Court of Appeals rejected that. In 2011, appellant filed a habeas corpus petition alleging that the evidence was insufficient to support either of his kidnapping convictions under the new standard for determining asportation set forth in Garza v. Georgia, 670 SE2d 73 (2008). In 2016, the habeas court denied the petition. The Georgia Supreme Court subsequently granted appellant’s application for a certificate of probable cause to appeal and reversed the habeas court’s judgment, finding that there was insufficient evidence of asportation to support appellant's convictions for kidnapping Mr. and Mrs. Love. View "Mercer v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Appellees Sherinna McMann and Childrona Holton were passengers in a car traveling on the interstate in Bibb County, Georgia when allegedly an unknown driver swerved into their car's path, causing the driver to slam on the brakes. Appellant Eric Carpenter was allegedly driving too closely behind them and rear-ended the vehicle. Doe fled the scene and was never identified. Appellees sued Doe and Carpenter for negligence in Bibb County under the Georgia uninsured motorist statute in Bibb County pursuant to OCGA 33-7-11 (d)(1), which provided that “the residence of such ‘John Doe’ defendant shall be presumed to be in the county in which the accident causing injury or damages occurred, or in the county of residence of the plaintiff, at the election of the plaintiff in the action.” Carpenter moved to transfer venue to Crawford County where he resided, but the trial court denied his motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court granted Carpenter’s petition for certiorari, posing a single question: Does the venue provision of the uninsured motorist statute apply in a suit related to an automobile collision brought against a known Georgia resident and an unknown defendant under a joint tortfeasor theory? The Supreme Court answered in the affirmative, and therefore affirmed. View "Carpenter v. McMann" on Justia Law

DayQuan Mangram was convicted of malice murder and related crimes in connection with the 2012 shooting death of Untavious Gillard. Mangram challenged the sufficiency of the evidence corroborating the testimony of a co-indictee and contended the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial after the State introduced testimony about a rumor that the victim had a bounty on his head. Finding that the state "made a strong case against Mangram," and the trial court's curative instructions were sufficient to preserve Mangram's right to a fair trial, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Mangram's conviction. View "Mangram v. Georgia" on Justia Law

The Director of the Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC) brought formal charged against Eddie Anderson, the Chief Magistrate Judge for Tattnall County. The acts of judicial misconduct arose from the repossession of a vehicle from a woman by the owner of an automobile dealership due to lack of payment to the dealership and lack of insurance on the vehicle. Judge Anderson demanded via an ex parte phone call that the owner either return the woman’s repossessed vehicle or remit the money paid to the dealership for the vehicle and reimburse the woman for her insurance costs. When the owner refused these ex parte demands, Judge Anderson advised the woman to file a case against the owner in his court, which she later did. Judge Anderson undermined the public integrity and impartiality of the judiciary by advising the woman to file a case and by making ex parte demands before a case was even filed. Moreover, Judge Anderson’s demands and the woman’s subsequent lawsuit violated clearly established law. The Georgia Supreme Court accepted an agreement between the JQC and Judge Anderson that he be publicly reprimanded for his admitted violations of the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct. View "Inquiry concerning Judge Eddie Anderson" on Justia Law

Christina Menzies was found guilty by jury of felony murder, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, and related crimes in connection with the shooting death of Menzies’s sister Jennifer during an attempted armed robbery. On appeal, Menzies contended the evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts, that the trial court erred in denying her motion for directed verdict at the close of the State’s case, that her trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move for a mistrial in response to a comment made by the prosecuting attorney in closing argument, and that the trial court erred in failing to exclude certain statements Menzies made while alone in an interview room at the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office. The Georgia Supreme Court determined none of these claims had merit, and affirmed Menzies’ conviction. View "Menzies v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Damarius Thompson challenged his convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Joshua Richey. Appellant represented himself on appeal, and enumerated a variety of claims. After review of the trial court record, the Georgia Supreme Court found no reversible error, and thus affirmed Thompson’s convictions. View "Thompson v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In 2015, Robert Shaughnessy and Katie Patten married and conceived a child. Shaughnessy died soon thereafter. In November 2015, the widowed Patten gave birth to a baby girl, and Patten permitted Shaughnessy’s mother, Mary Jo Ardis, to visit with the baby on a couple of occasions. But those visits did not go well, and in November 2016, Ardis filed a petition pursuant to OCGA 19-7-3 (d) for court-ordered visitation with her granddaughter. In Brooks v. Parkerson, 454 SE2d 769 (1995), the Georgia Supreme Court held that the Grandparent Visitation Act of 1988 was unconstitutional to the extent that it authorized courts to award child visitation to a grandparent over the objection of fit parents and without a clear and convincing showing of harm to the child. Seventeen years later, the General Assembly enacted the Grandparent Visitation Rights Act of 2012, a provision of which authorized courts to award child visitation in some circumstances to a grandparent over the objection of a fit parent and without a clear and convincing showing of harm to the child in limited circumstances. Citing Brooks, Patten responded that subsection (d) unconstitutionally impaired a parent’s “right to raise his or her child without undue state interference,” and upon this ground, Patten moved to dismiss the petition for visitation. In May 2017, following a hearing, the trial court held that subsection (d) was constitutional, denied the motion to dismiss, and granted the petition for visitation pursuant to subsection (d), concluding that visitation with Ardis was consistent with the best interests of the girl. Patten appealed, and the Supreme Court reversed and remanded with direction. The Supreme Court determined subsection (d) was unconstitutional, and the trial court erred in granting visitation pursuant to that subsection. View "Patten v. Ardis" on Justia Law

Appellants Tshombe Stripling and Elijah Brewer were convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the 2013 shooting death of Khaseim Walton. On appeal, Stripling contended only that the trial court committed plain error by not instructing the jury on the need for accomplice testimony to be corroborated. Brewer contended the evidence was insufficient to sustain his conviction for criminal street gang activity and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to call an expert on the smartphone application AirDroid. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed both appellants’ convictions. View "Stripling v. Georgia" on Justia Law

In July 2015, the Juvenile Court of Cherokee County, Georgia terminated the parental rights of a father and a mother as to their three minor children, I.L.M., I.T.M., and B.M. On October 8, 2015, in a separate case, the Cherokee County Department of Family and Children Services (“DFCS”) filed a petition alleging the parents’ newly-born child E.G.M. to be dependent. That same day, the juvenile court entered a protective custody order and appointed a guardian ad litem for E.G.M.; an adjudication hearing on DFCS’s petition was scheduled for October 22, 2015. At the hearing on that date, all parties announced that they were ready to proceed. However, the court, on its own motion and over the parents’ objections, decided to continue the hearing until a later date, and set the adjudication hearing for November 18, 2015; no written continuance order was entered at that time. The Georgia Supreme Court granted certiorari to the Court of Appeals in the case of In the Interest of E.G.M., 798 SE2d 639 (2017), to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in the manner in which it applied certain provisions of the Juvenile Code, OCGA 15-11-1, et seq., pertaining to the juvenile court’s decision to order a continuance of a dependency hearing. Finding that the continuance order did not meet the requirements of OCGA 15-11-110, and it was that flawed continuance order that caused the failure to meet the adjudication time limit of OCGA 15-11-118(a), the Supreme Court reversed: "The General Assembly has stated that dependency proceedings are to be completed expeditiously, OCGA 15-11-100 (2) , dismissal of a petition without prejudice furthers that goal by imposing a consequence for a failure to meet the statutory time requirements, see In the Interest of M.D.H., 300 Ga. 46, 57 (6) (793 SE2d 49) (2016), and in the circumstances of this case, we must conclude that the juvenile court abused the discretion afforded it under OCGA 15-11-181(a) to dismiss the petition without prejudice." View "In the Interest of I. L. M. et al., children" on Justia Law

Leroy Willis was found guilty of murder, rape, and other charges arising out of the strangulation death of a victim whose body was discovered in the parking lot of a tire company where Willis had previously been employed and where he frequently slept. Willis denied having a sexual relationship with the victim, but at trial, after incriminating DNA evidence was presented to the jury, he contradicted his initial statement and explained this evidence by testifying he had a consensual sexual encounter with the victim shortly before her body was discovered. Willis admitted he had slept in the vehicle next to where the victim’s body was discovered the night prior to that discovery. Similar transaction evidence established that Willis had attacked and raped two other women at the location where the body was found, and that he had sexually attacked another woman, also in a motor vehicle, at another location. Accordingly, Willis failed to establish plain error arising from the jury instruction in question, and the Georgia Supreme Court rejected his assertion that the convictions should have been reversed. View "Willis v. Georgia" on Justia Law