Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

A jury convicted Appellant Clayton Jerrod Ellington of murdering his wife Berna Ellington and their twin two-year-old sons, Cameron and Christian. The jury found two statutory aggravating circumstances related to each of the three murders and recommended three death sentences, which the trial court imposed. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed Ellington's convictions. As to his death sentences, however, the Court held hold that the trial court abused its discretion in prohibiting Ellington from asking prospective jurors in voir dire whether they would consider all three sentencing options (death, life without parole, and life with the possibility of parole) in a case involving the murder of young children, where that was clearly a critical fact in this case, as shown by, among other things, the responses of prospective jurors who knew or inferred that fact from other sources and by the way the prosecutor tried and argued the case. "We cannot say that this error was harmless, so we must reverse Ellington’s death sentences and remand the case for further proceedings." View "Ellington v. Georgia" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Albert Durham of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of George McCrary. On appeal, Durham contended that the State elicited improper hearsay testimony, the trial court failed to give a complete charge on circumstantial evidence, and trial counsel was ineffective. Because the trial court did not commit reversible error in its evidentiary rulings and jury instructions and trial counsel's representation was not ineffective, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Durham v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Following a jury trial, Nehemiah Davis appealed his convictions for malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, contending that his right to due process was violated when the State offered false evidence at trial. Finding that the evidence was not false and sufficient to support his conviction, the Supreme Court affirmed the convictions. View "Davis v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Pro se appellant Sandro Campos appealed the denial of his motion for an out-of-time appeal, following his entry of a plea of guilty to malice murder for the 2004 fatal shooting of Henry Jayaprakasham, and Campos's resulting sentence of life in prison. Finding that there was no error when the trial court determined that appellant was not entitled to an out-of-time appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's decision. View "Campos v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Darchelle Renee Arnold was charged by indictment with two counts of malice murder, four counts of felony murder, three counts of armed robbery, and six counts of aggravated assault, in connection with the shooting deaths of two victims and the wounding of another. Pursuant to a negotiated plea, appellant pled guilty to two counts of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault. She was sentenced to two concurrent terms of life for each felony murder count and twenty years on probation, to be served consecutively, for aggravated assault. Appellant subsequently filed a motion to withdraw her guilty plea, claiming: (1) ineffective assistance of counsel, and (2) she did not enter a knowing, voluntarily, and intelligent plea. Following a hearing, the motion was denied and this appeal followed. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Arnold v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Appellant Mark Thornton was convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, burglary, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and conspiracy to commit a crime in connection with his role in the shooting death of Joshua Scott. Thornton's motion for new trial was denied, and he appealed his convictions. On appeal, Thornton asserted that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction based on a party to a crime theory; the trial court erred in permitting the State to present evidence of Thornton's prior illegal drug activities; and trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. View "Thornton v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Robert Allen Sears was tried by a jury and convicted of the murder of Isaiah Lovett, aggravated assault, and possession of a knife during the commission of a felony. Following the denial of his motion for new trial, Sears appealed and asserted several claims of error, including that the trial court erred when it failed to merge the aggravated assault into his murder conviction. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed with Sears that the failure to merge was error, and the Court vacated his conviction for aggravated assault and remanded the case for the trial court to sentence him again. The Court found no merit in the other claims of error, and otherwise affirmed the judgment of the trial court. View "Sears v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Marcin Waldemar Sosniak appealed the trial court’s denial of his motion to dismiss his indictment due to an alleged constitutional speedy trial violation. Because the Supreme Court found that "Callaway v. Georgia" (567 SE2d 13 (2002)), and "Boseman v. Georgia" (438 SE2d 626 (1994)), wrongly decided that the denial of a pre-trial constitutional speedy trial claim may be directly appealed, the Court dismissed Sosniak’s appeal for failure to follow the interlocutory appeal procedures of OCGA 5-6-34 (b). View "Sosniak v. Georgia" on Justia Law

Following the denial of his motion to suppress, Michael Jason Registe filed an application for an interlocutory appeal. The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court was [w]hether the trial court erred by denying Registe's motion to suppress evidence pertaining to his cell phone records. Registe was indicted for the 2007 murder of two men who were shot in the head some time after borrowing a car from Lawrence Kidd. The next morning, Kidd told police that the victims were going to meet someone named "Mike," and Kidd provided Mike's cell phone number. Using this cell number, a detective faxed Cricket Communications, the cell service provider, a message asking for the cell phone records at issue. Cricket reported that the account belonged to "Kareem Penn," an alias of Registe. After cold calling numbers in the phone records provided by Cricket, Registe was eventually identified, his apartment searched pursuant to a warrant issued in part by the cell phone records, and Registe was later arrested. Registe moved to suppress the phone records, contending that under Georgia law, the telephone records should have been considered inadmissible. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the voluntary disclosure of telephone records in this case satisfied the applicable statutes. Under the facts set forth in the trial court's order, the Court concluded that Cricket believed in good faith that disclosure of Registe's cell phone records was appropriate. "Here, Cricket received information directly from police that its records could help identify an at-large suspect of a double homicide committed within a day of the request and that the suspect presented a present and immediate danger. This supported Cricket's good faith belief that there was an ongoing emergency, and that belief supported Cricket's voluntary disclosure of its records. . . . Registe's motion to suppress was properly denied." View "Registe v. Georgia" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the Court of Appeals properly stated and applied the law governing accident and proximate cause in a "strict liability" offense. Appellee Shirley Ogilvie struck and killed a seven-year-old boy with her car as she drove through a crosswalk while the child was crossing the street. The trial court had declined to give Ogilvie's requested jury charge on the defense of accident. On appeal, she contended that the accident charge was authorized by her testimony that she could not stop before hitting the child because he ran across the street in front of her car, giving her only a second or two to avoid hitting him. The Court of Appeals concluded that Ogilvie's testimony that she could not avoid hitting the child warranted an accident charge. Upon review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court concluded that Ogilvie's defense at trial was not that she acted involuntarily, and thus without the required criminal intent, where her car struck the child. Her defense was that the act (or failure to act) of another person – the child in running into the crosswalk (or the crossing guard in failing to stop him) – was the proximate cause of the deadly collision. "That is a proximate cause defense, not an accident defense, regardless of how she tried to characterize it." The trial court therefore was not required to give an accident instruction, and the properly charged jury rejected her proximate cause defense. View "Georgia v. Ogilvie" on Justia Law