Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant and co-defendant were convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Defendant was separately convicted of theft by receiving a Toyota Highlander. Defendant appealed his conviction, asserting ineffective assistance of counsel. The court held that counsel was not ineffective in failing to exclude an out-of-court identification of defendant; trial counsel was not ineffective in failing to call two witnesses to testify for defendant at trial; counsel was not ineffective in failing to object to the State's oral requests to charge the jury on testimony of a single witness and parties to a crime; and trial counsel was not ineffective in failing to object to and move to exclude the testimony regarding a State's witness's threatening conduct. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant and co-defendant were convicted of felony murder, aggravated assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Defendant appealed his conviction. The court held that "merely listing the possible guilty verdict option(s) before the 'Not Guilty' option" on a pre-printed verdict form would not by itself mislead the jury as to the presumption of innocence; the trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the lead detective to remain in the courtroom during the three-day trial; and defendant failed to carry his burden of demonstrating ineffective assistance of counsel. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, and cruelty to children arising out of the death of a 15-month-old. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for a new trial alleging that the trial court committed plain error by making a number of improper statements during the course of the trial and by failing to sever his trial from that of his co-defendant. Because the trial court's favorable comments regarding one of the State's witnesses, a detective, could have been construed by the jury as bolstering that witnesses' testimony, the court reversed and remanded for a new trial

Defendant was convicted of the malice murder of his fiancee and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for a new trial. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to enable a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was guilty of murder; the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting evidence of allegedly similar transactions involving his ex-wife and occurring a decade or more before the victim's death; the charge on OCGA 16-3-21(b)(3) "was at most merely irrelevant, being one of a number of stated exceptions to the rule concerning the use of force in self-defense" and the trial court not only instructed the jury on self-defenses as set forth in subsection (a), it also fully charged on the doctrine of reasonable fears, on the absence of a duty to retreat, and on the State's burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was not justified; and the prior admission of a similar transaction from which the jury could draw certain limited inferences did not make unreasonable defense counsel's strategy to avoid offering testimony of defendant's nonviolent character. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of child molestation based on an incident that occurred in a restroom at Screven County High School. During trial, the State failed to introduce any direct evidence that the crime occurred in Screven County. Defendant appealed his conviction and the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that, pursuant to Thompson v. Brown, in the absence of evidence that Screven County High School was located in Screven County, evidence of venue was lacking. Because the court found the evidence, albeit circumstantial, sufficient to prove venue beyond a reasonable doubt, the court reversed the judgment.

Defendant appealed his convictions for malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a knife during the commission of a crime, and cruelty to children in the third degree, contending that the trial court erred in admitting certain incriminating statements made by him to the State's psychiatric expert. The court held that because defendant chose to call an expert to testify regarding his mental state at the time of the crime, the State had a statutory right to call its expert in rebuttal. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The habeas court subsequently found that defendant's appellate counsel had been deficient for failing to ensure the transcript of the hearing on the motion to dismiss the jury panel was included in the record on appeal and that defendant was prejudiced by this deficiency. After review, the court found that the habeas court's findings of facts were supported by the record and thus were not clearly erroneous. However, the habeas court erred by simply presuming prejudice from the alleged deficiency. The burden was on defendant to show prejudice and the habeas court failed to explain how this burden was met. Accordingly, the habeas court erred in granting the petition for writ of habeas corpus and the judgment was reversed.

Defendant appealed his murder conviction, contending, inter alia, that the trial court abused its discretion in finding that the state adequately established the chain of custody for the victim's blood sample that was later matched to the blood on defendant's shorts. The court held that defendant presented no evidence that the blood sample had been tampered with or substituted and there was no abuse of discretion in determining that the State laid a proper foundation. The court also held that the trial court did not err in failing to dismiss a juror for inappropriate contact with a member of the victim's family where the contact caused no prejudice. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. On appeal, defendant contended that the district court erred by admitting certain evidence and by giving an improper jury instruction. The court held that there was no merit to defendant's claim that the trial court's instruction on "malice aforethought" confused the jury where the trial court's instruction was based on the pattern charge and the trial court was legally correct, the trial court had discretion to give unrequested instructions not contained in the trial court's original charge, and it was unlikely that the jury was confused by the recharge. The court disposed of defendant's remaining claims and affirmed the judgment.

Defendant appealed his conviction for felony murder and firearm possession in connection with a shooting death of an unarmed victim. The court held that defendant's claims, that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to give curative jury instruction, call a mistrial, or pool the jurors, were not raised at trial and could not be raised for the first time on appeal. Even if the court overlooked defendant's waiver, these claims would fail on the merits. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.