Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Appellant Deon Jones challenged his convictions for felony murder and influencing a witness in connection with the 2004 shooting death of Scott Corwin. He contended that the statute of limitation barred his prosecution for influencing a witness; that the trial court made several erroneous evidentiary rulings; that he was denied effective assistance of counsel; and that the combined effect of the trial court’s multiple erroneous evidentiary rulings and his trial counsel’s deficient performance deprived him of a fair trial. The indictment alleged that on or about June 1, 2004, Appellant knowingly threatened a witness with the intent to prevent her from communicating to a Georgia law enforcement officer information relating to the commission of a crime, i.e., the shooting of Corwin. The State had until June 1, 2011, to indict Appellant for influencing a witness. But the State did not indict Appellant until December 27, 2017. Thus, the statute of limitation expired more than six years before the State started its prosecution of Appellant for that offense. Contrary to the trial court’s understanding, the Georgia Supreme Court's decision in Riley v. Georgia, 824 SE2d 249 (2019), the witness here knew about the crime the moment it was committed, so her knowledge is imputed to the State. Thus, OCGA § 17-3-2 (2) did not toll the statute of limitation. The Supreme Court reversed Appellant’s conviction and sentence for influencing a witness, but it otherwise affirmed the trial court’s judgment. View "Jones v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Melvin Roberts was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the 2016 shooting death of Jabari Pettway. On appeal, Roberts argued the trial court erred in admitting evidence of an armed robbery he allegedly committed nine days before the murder. That evidence included a shell casing that testing showed was discharged from the same gun as casings from Pettway’s murder, as well as testimony from the armed-robbery victim identifying Roberts as the one who possessed, shot, and left with the gun. The trial court admitted all of the armed-robbery evidence under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b) for the purpose of proving Roberts’s identity as the murderer. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed on a different legal basis: the limited evidence was not subject to Rule 404 (b) because it was admissible as evidence intrinsic to the charged crime. "The same cannot be said for the armed-robbery evidence as a whole, but any error in admitting evidence of the robbery beyond the intrinsic portion was harmless, because the evidence against Roberts that was properly admitted was quite strong, and the court’s limiting instruction about the armed-robbery evidence mitigated the chance that the jury considered the extraneous details of the robbery." View "Roberts v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Victor Moten was convicted of malice murder and related offenses in connection with the 2015 shooting death of Juan Diaz Mendez. On appeal, Moten contended the trial court erred by refusing to allow him to amend his motion for new trial to add a timely claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. To this, the Georgia Supreme Court agreed, vacated the trial court’s order denying Moten’s motion for new trial, and remanded this case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Moten v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Barbra Polke was convicted by jury of malice murder and other crimes arising from the shooting death of her former girlfriend, Ashley Sharpe. Polke contended on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support her convictions beyond a reasonable doubt and that the trial court should have exercised its discretion as the thirteenth juror to grant a new trial. Polke also contended the State failed to prove venue beyond a reasonable doubt. Because the record supported the trial court’s order denying Polke’s motion for a new trial, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed. View "Polke v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Stephen Willis was convicted along with four co-defendants of crimes arising from the 2014 shooting death of Nicholas Hagood. On appeal, Willis contended: (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions; (2) the trial court plainly erred by failing to instruct the jury that the testimony of an accomplice requires corroboration; and (3) his trial counsel was ineffective for allowing an exhibit to be introduced that included information about his prior encounters with law enforcement, not requesting a limiting instruction as to how the jury could consider that felony conviction, and failing to move to suppress the search warrant that yielded Willis’s phone records. The Georgia Supreme Court concluded the evidence was sufficient to support Willis’s convictions. Further, the failure to give an accomplice-corroboration jury instruction was not plain error, because even assuming the instruction should have been given, the failure to give it was not likely to have affected the outcome of the trial in light of the substantial evidence against Willis. Finally, Willis failed to establish that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. "He has not shown that he was prejudiced by the introduction of the exhibit that showed his prior criminal history, and his counsel was not deficient for failing to move to suppress the search warrant because the warrant was supported by probable cause: the warrant application relied in part on a statement from a named informant that was against the informant’s penal interest." So judgment was affirmed. View "Willis v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Antonio Randall was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol to the extent that it was less safe for him to drive, in addition to other traffic offenses. The trial court granted Randall’s motion to suppress evidence of his refusal to submit to a warrantless blood test on the ground that Georgia’s Implied Consent statutes violated a DUI defendant’s due process rights by allowing blood test refusal evidence to be admitted against the defendant at trial. The State appealed. On appeal, the parties agreed that the evidence was admissible for the limited purpose of explaining the absence of evidence of blood test results. Consequently, it was not necessary for the trial court to consider in this case whether admitting blood test refusal evidence for other purposes against DUI defendants was constitutional. "Because a trial court should consider a challenge to the constitutionality of a statute only when necessary to resolve the merits of the case at bar," the Georgia Supreme Court vacated the trial court’s order granting Randall’s motion to suppress. View "Georgia v. Randall" on Justia Law

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit certified questions of Georgia law to the Georgia Supreme Court about life-insurance law. The basic question for the Supreme Court was whether a person could legally take out an insurance policy on his own life with the intent to turn around and sell that policy to a third party who had no “insurable interest” in the policyholder’s life. The person seeking to recover on the life-insurance policy in this case said that such a policy was legal if a third party was not involved in causing the policy to be procured. The insurance company says that with or without such third-party involvement, such a policy was an illegal wagering contract and therefore void, relying on some Georgia case law. But as it turned out, that case law was interpreting and applying old statutes. In 1960, the Georgia General Assembly repealed those statutes and replaced them with new statutory language that codified some, but not all, of the old decisional law, and the new language did not even hint at the unilateral-intent-based limitation that the insurance company advanced. So the Supreme Court answered the certified questions: under Georgia law, a life-insurance policy taken out by the insured on his own life with the intent to sell the policy to a third party with no insurable interest, but without a third party’s involvement when the policy was procured, was not void as an illegal wagering contract. View "Crum v. Jackson National Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

In early 2019, police officers responded to a shooting where they discovered 15-year-old appellee Paris Powell standing beside the decedent, Larry “Tre” Bryant. Appellee was interviewed by Detective John Gleason on March 1, March 4, and March 25, 2019, in connection with Bryant’s death. Powell’s mother, Tiffany, was present at all relevant times. After a hearing, the trial court found that Appellee was not in custody for any of the interviews and determined that Appellee’s March 1 and March 4 statements were freely and voluntarily given. However, the trial court partially suppressed Appellee’s March 25 statement, finding that, under a totality of the circumstances, she did not knowingly and voluntarily make a statement as a matter of constitutional due process. The State appealed the trial court’s partial suppression of Appellee’s March 25 statements, contending that the trial court clearly erred in determining that Appellee’s statements were involuntary under Riley v. Georgia, 226 SE2d 922 (1976). After review of the trial court record, the Georgia Supreme Court disagreed with the State and affirmed the trial court's ruling. View "Georgia v. Powell" on Justia Law

Anthony Clark was convicted by jury of felony murder and related crimes in connection with the 2019 death of Stasha Baggett. On appeal, Clark argued that, during his trial, a juror improperly communicated with a member of the victim’s family who was sitting in the audience. Clark contended that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate properly or otherwise address the incident, and that the trial court also failed to investigate the incident properly, depriving him of his right to a fair trial. The Georgia Supreme Court found the record showed that counsel made reasonable efforts to address the juror issue, and any error on the part of the trial court was not preserved for review. So judgment was affirmed. View "Clark v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Troy Simmons was convicted by jury of felony murder and other crimes arising out of the 2013 shooting death of Wendell Lee and the aggravated assault of April Tongol. On appeal, Simmons argued : (1) the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions; (2) the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury completely on corroboration for confessions as required by OCGA § 24-8-823; (3) the trial court erred in instructing the jury as to Simmons’s flight; and (4) trial counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance. Because Simmons did not show reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. View "Simmons v. Georgia" on Justia Law