Justia Georgia Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In August 2018, Mary Collington was involved in a motor vehicle accident with Jesse Curney, a deputy with the Clayton County Sheriff’s Department, who was acting within the scope of his official duties at the time. Initially believing Deputy Curney was a Clayton County police officer, Collington sent notice of her claims to the Clayton County Chief of Police, the Clayton County Commissioners, and the District Attorney of Clayton County. Collington later filed a lawsuit against Clayton County, asserting that she suffered injuries caused by the negligence of Deputy Curney.Upon motion to dismiss by the defendants, the trial court dismissed Collington's claims, concluding that Collington's claims against the Sheriff should be dismissed as she had failed to present timely notice to the Sheriff's office under OCGA § 36-11-1. The Court of Appeals affirmed this decision. The Supreme Court of Georgia granted certiorari to determine whether OCGA § 36-11-1 applies to official-capacity claims against a county sheriff for the negligent use of a motor vehicle, and if so, whether presenting such a claim to the county commission satisfies the claimant's duty under the statute.The Supreme Court of Georgia held that OCGA § 36-11-1 does apply to official-capacity claims against a county sheriff for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle. Furthermore, the court decided that because a claim against a county sheriff in his official capacity for the negligent use of a covered motor vehicle is a claim against a county under OCGA § 36-11-1, presenting the claim to the county governing authority satisfies the statute's presentment requirement. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part the judgment of the Court of Appeals, remanding the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. View "COLLINGTON v. CLAYTON COUNTY" on Justia Law

In this case, the Supreme Court of Georgia considered whether the State violated Joseph Robert Gates's right to privacy under the Georgia Constitution by obtaining his medical records through an ex parte court order. The records, which were obtained after a car accident involving Gates, contained results of blood alcohol content (BAC) tests performed by the hospital where Gates was treated. The State used these records to charge Gates with several offenses, including driving under the influence. Gates filed a motion to suppress his medical records, but the trial court denied the motion, leading to this appeal.The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed the trial court's decision. The court held that Gates's medical records, including the BAC test results, were protected by the right to privacy under the Georgia Constitution. The court further concluded that the State's use of an ex parte court order to obtain Gates's medical records was more akin to the use of an ex parte subpoena, which had previously been held to violate the right to privacy, rather than an ex parte search warrant, which had been deemed permissible. The fact that the court order was not based on probable cause, nor did it comply with the statutory requirements for the issuance of a search warrant, further supported this conclusion. Therefore, the court concluded that the State had violated Gates's right to privacy by obtaining his medical records through an ex parte court order. As a result, the court reversed the trial court's denial of Gates's motion to suppress. View "GATES v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In Georgia, Edward Lee was convicted of malice murder and other crimes related to a series of offenses committed between December 15, 2011, and January 19, 2012. On appeal, Lee argued that the trial court erred in denying his motions for a mistrial based on the grounds that his co-indictee mentioned Lee’s prior imprisonment during his testimony and that the State violated Brady v. Maryland by failing to disclose evidence about a fourth man involved in one of the crimes. Lee also claimed his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the prosecutor's comments on the veracity of witnesses and arguments about facts not in evidence during closing arguments.The Supreme Court of Georgia held that Lee waived his right to appeal the denial of his mistrial motions because he failed to make the motions contemporaneously when the issues arose during the trial. The court also rejected Lee's ineffective assistance of counsel claim, ruling that the prosecutor's comments were permissible as they were based on reasonable inferences from the evidence and not statements about the prosecutor’s personal beliefs. The court also stated that the decision not to object to a part of a prosecutor's closing argument is a tactical one and that failure to object must be patently unreasonable to be deemed deficient. The court affirmed the lower court's decision, thereby upholding Lee's conviction. View "LEE v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In January 2018, Dorothy Warren passed away after Dr. Nirandr Inthachak allegedly misinterpreted her CT scan. Angela Wilson, Warren’s daughter, filed a lawsuit against Dr. Inthachak. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Dr. Inthachak on two grounds. First, Wilson failed to provide clear and convincing evidence of gross negligence required under OCGA § 51-1-29.5 for healthcare liability claims arising from emergency medical care. Second, Wilson couldn’t prove that the outcome would have been different if Dr. Inthachak had correctly interpreted the CT scan.Wilson appealed, and all 14 judges of the Court of Appeals agreed that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment was improper. However, they were evenly divided on why summary judgment was incorrect under OCGA § 51-1-29.5. The Court of Appeals transferred the case to the Supreme Court of Georgia due to the equal division, invoking the Court's equal-division jurisdiction.The Supreme Court of Georgia concluded that it did not have jurisdiction over the case because the Court of Appeals was not equally divided on the disposition of the judgment that was appealed. The Court of Appeals had unanimously agreed that the grant of summary judgment could not stand, and their disagreement was only regarding the reasons for why one of the two grounds was faulty. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that such a disagreement did not invoke its equal-division jurisdiction. Therefore, the Court returned the case to the Court of Appeals. View "WILSON v. INTHACHAK" on Justia Law

In this case, Laquan Hasuan Jivens was convicted for malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the shooting death of Kathy Henry. Jivens appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter, admitting photographs of model firearms and of Jivens with firearms, denying his motion for mistrial after the State elicited testimony of his potential gang affiliation, granting the State’s motion in limine excluding evidence of Henry’s drug use, and denying his motion for mistrial based on the State’s allegedly improper closing arguments.The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the convictions. The Court held that the trial court did not err in failing to give a voluntary manslaughter charge because the evidence did not support such a charge. The court also concluded that it is highly probable that any error in admitting the firearm-related photographs did not contribute to the verdict. The court found that Jivens did not preserve for appellate review the issue related to evidence of gang affiliation. The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of Henry’s drug use, and that Jivens waived any objection to the State’s alleged improper arguments. View "JIVENS v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In this case, Cynthia Jones was convicted of malice murder and related crimes in connection to the shooting death of her husband, Kenneth Jones. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed her conviction. Cynthia appealed her conviction, arguing that the trial court erred by refusing to give a jury instruction on self-defense. The court assumed, without deciding, that there was slight evidence of self-defense and that the trial court may have erred in declining to instruct the jury on self-defense. However, the court held that even if there was such an error, it was harmless. The court explained that a nonconstitutional instructional error is harmless if it is highly probable that the jury would have reached the same verdict even if the trial court had given the instruction. After examining the evidence presented at trial, the court concluded that it was highly probable that the jury would have reached the same verdict even if the trial court had given the self-defense instruction. The court found the evidence supporting Cynthia's claim of self-defense was weak, as there was no evidence that Kenneth wielded a weapon on the night of the shooting or that Cynthia believed it was necessary to use deadly force to prevent death or great bodily harm to herself. Therefore, Cynthia failed to show that the trial court's assumed error in declining to provide a self-defense instruction contributed to the jury's verdict. View "JONES v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In this case, the appellant, James Leon Beard III, appealed his convictions for felony murder and a firearm offense resulting from the shooting death of his wife, Angela Bishop. He contested that the trial court erred by not giving the jury a no duty to retreat instruction and by providing the jury with a sequential unanimity instruction on the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. He also argued that he was denied effective assistance of counsel and that the cumulative prejudice from the trial court’s errors and his trial counsel’s deficiencies warranted a new trial.The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed with the appellant's claims. The court found that the appellant failed to demonstrate that the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on no duty to retreat affected his substantial rights or that the court erroneously instructed the jury regarding the lesser offense, thus not showing plain error. The court also concluded that the appellant failed to show deficiency and prejudice necessary to establish ineffective assistance of counsel. Finally, the court ruled that the assumed trial court error and assumed deficiencies by trial counsel did not entitle the appellant to a new trial and affirmed the lower court's decision. View "BEARD v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In July 2015, Christopher Reid Scoggins and co-defendant Fred Jason Charles were indicted for the murder of Stephanie Daniel and other related offenses. The jury found both defendants guilty on all counts. Scoggins was sentenced to life without parole for malice murder, plus additional time for other crimes. Scoggins appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request a jury instruction on concealing the death of another or hindering the apprehension of a felon.The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the lower court's ruling. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to sustain Scoggins' convictions. Even though it was not conclusively established which defendant shot Daniel, the court found sufficient evidence of Scoggins' involvement in the crime. This was based on the fact that Scoggins was present at the time of the shooting, fled the scene with Charles, and made no attempt to seek medical aid for Daniel, which the court viewed as an indication of shared criminal intent.Additionally, the court held that Scoggins' trial counsel was not ineffective. The court stated that neither concealing the death of another nor hindering the apprehension of a felon were included within any of the offenses with which Scoggins was charged. Therefore, it was not deficient for Scoggins' trial counsel to not request instructions on these offenses. View "SCOGGINS v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the conviction of Roy Lee Waters for felony murder related to the shooting death of his longtime girlfriend, Melvina Dunlap. Waters appealed on the grounds that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction, the trial court wrongly denied his motion for a new trial, and his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by not adequately investigating his insanity defense.The court found that the jury was authorized to reject Waters’s insanity defense based on its assessment of the credibility of the witnesses and of any conflicts in the evidence, including the testimony of a forensic psychologist who evaluated Waters and determined he was criminally responsible at the time of the shooting. The court also found that the trial court did not err in denying Waters's motion for a new trial based on "general grounds".On the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel, the court found that Waters's trial counsel was not deficient for failing to further investigate the insanity defense by procuring an expert to testify about Waters’s criminal responsibility at the time of the shooting, and even assuming that counsel was deficient in failing to procure an expert to testify about the side effects of Waters’s prescription medications, Waters failed to establish prejudice. Hence, the conviction was affirmed. View "WATERS v. THE STATE" on Justia Law

In the Supreme Court of Georgia, the justices decided on the case involving Tavius Bates, Octavious Jordan, and Jeremy Southern who were convicted of crimes stemming from the shooting death of Nicholas Hagood. The crimes occurred on March 26, 2014, and the defendants were indicted on eight counts each, including malice murder, armed robbery, felony murder, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, and possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony.The jury found Southern guilty of all counts while Bates, Jordan, Willis, and Fortson were found not guilty of malice murder but guilty of the remaining counts. The defendants were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment. Bates, Jordan, and Southern each filed appeals arguing that the evidence was not sufficient to sustain their convictions. In addition, Bates contended that the trial court should have granted a mistrial when a detective testified that Jordan mentioned "the other subjects" in his statement to the police, which Bates claimed violated his rights under Bruton v. United States. Southern argued that the trial court erred by instructing the jury about conspiracy as there was no evidence of a conspiracy, and by allowing a jailhouse informant to testify because the informant was acting as an agent of the State and he obtained incriminating information from Bates without counsel present.The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the convictions of Bates, Jordan, and Southern. The court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to uphold the convictions, Bates did not preserve his Bruton claim as he accepted the trial court's curative instruction and did not renew his motion for a mistrial after the instruction was given, and there was no error in instructing the jury about conspiracy because there was at least slight evidence of a conspiracy. The court also ruled that the jailhouse informant was not an agent of the State as there was no evidence of an agreement between the informant and the State. View "BATES v. THE STATE" on Justia Law