By Katheryn Hayes Tucker

For want of a trial transcript, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the murder conviction Monday of a man the justices agreed appeared to be “clearly guilty” of murdering his girlfriend nine years ago by stabbing her 36 times.

Recordings and notes from the six-day trial were destroyed in a 2011 fire at the home of the court reporter. Although the fire was two years and two months after the trial, the transcript had never been made available to the defendant, according to the opinion Justice David Nahmias wrote for a unanimous court. The justices reversed the denial of a new trial for Craig Johnson, convicted of malice murder and sentenced to life plus 40 years for the stabbing death of Nicole Judge.

“We cannot hold that an appellant is not entitled to a complete trial transcript simply because it appears from the record that exists that he is clearly guilty,” Nahmias said. “Because Johnson has been deprived of the ability to appeal his convictions, the trial court should have granted his motion for a new trial.”

Lee County Chief Assistant District Attorney Lewis Lamb, who handled the appeal for the state, said Monday he will try the case again.

“The ultimate duty falls on the state to make sure the transcript is made,” Lamb said. Although the court reporter had transcribed many pages of pre-trial motion hearings, she had not transcribed the trial when her home burned to the ground. The state attempted to recreate a narrative transcript from the memory of the judge – who has since retired – and an investigator who watched the entire trial, plus notes from a prosecutor who has also left the job.

“We put together the best version of a recreated transcript we could based on the materials available to us,” Lamb said. That included the exhibits, which were not destroyed because they were stored at the courthouse.

But the public defender – who has also since left the job – did not participate, a decision that Lamb said proved to be strategic. Another attorney, Kevin Kwashnak of the public defender's office in Americus, appealed the conviction and won.

Kwashnak could not be reached for comment.

“The state ultimately provided Johnson with a 14-page, double-spaced document purported to be a complete narrative recreation of the trial transcript,” Nahmias wrote. “We conclude that the recreated transcript is not sufficiently detailed to allow Johnson a fair opportunity to appeal or to allow meaningful appellate review.”

Nahmias said state law and the high court's precedent makes it clear that a transcript is required for a civil or criminal case to stand up on appeal. He quoted OCGA § 5-6-41 (d):

“Where a trial in any civil or criminal case is reported by a court reporter, all motions, colloquies, objections, rulings, evidence, whether admitted or stricken on objection or otherwise, copies or summaries of all documentary evidence, the charge of the court, and all other proceedings which may be called in question on appeal or other post-trial procedure shall be reported … [and] all such matters shall be included in the written transcript.”

One of the faults Nahmias found with Lee County's recreation is that it did not include the judge's jury charge.

The case is Johnson v. State, No. S17A1105.