Tossing 24 years of case law that one justice said was "created out of whole cloth," the Supreme Court of Georgia has held that defendants don't have to prove they would prevail in their ineffective assistance of counsel claims to have a judge review appeals of their guilty pleas.

The nine justices unanimously overruled 89 related decisions from their own bench and the state Court of Appeals but appeared split over what should happen next.

Lewis Lamb (Courtesy photo)

Five justices joined a decision written by Justice John Ellington sidestepping an argument by Lewis Lamb, the district attorney in the Southwestern Circuit, whose prosecution of a murder case was at issue. Lamb asked the court to require unhappy plea-bargainers to file state habeas corpus claims rather than taking their appeal to the initial court where they were sentenced.

Lamb had said prosecuting a case years after a guilty plea is rescinded would be hard due to loss of evidence and witnesses' whereabouts, but a habeas requirement—with its four-year statute of limitations—would limit that problem.

Ellington wrote for the majority, including Chief Justice Harold Melton, Presiding Justice David Nahmias and Justices Robert Benham and Sarah Hawkins Warren, that the state could raise the defense of "prejudicial delay" to belated plea deal appeals.

Joined by Justices Keith Blackwell, Michael Boggs and Charles Bethel, Justice Nels Peterson called the majority's effort to untangle the decadeslong "mess" of jurisprudence well-intentioned but "overreaching and unduly duplicative."

"We never should have started making things up, and we ought to stop now," Peterson wrote in the concurrence, calling on the General Assembly to pass laws that would clear matters up and "save us from ourselves."

Pro Se Cases

Monday's decision was set in motion by two prison inmates who brought cases without lawyers.

In January, the court ruled in favor of Richard Terrance Ringold, who wanted to appeal his guilty plea to murder charges on the grounds that his counsel wasn't effective. Boggs wrote for the court that Ringold's claims could go forward. Nahmias concurred, saying the ruling "sounds a clear death knell for two sets of our prior holdings, and a third set of our holdings should also be promptly jettisoned."

The case of Cordalero Collier, who in 2018 sought to make similar claims about his 2009 guilty plea to a murder charge, gave the court a vehicle to make the rulings Nahmias predicted.

The court appointed Brandon Bullard and Veronica O'Grady of the Public Defender Council's appellate office to represent Collier, as he wasn't entitled to a lawyer at this stage of his case.

Bullard, who heads the office, said Monday that the decision clarifies "what had become complex law" around various qualifications for when a defendant can appeal his plea.

"It's preferable we not be engaging in mechanical denials" of defendants' efforts for review, he said, acknowledging that "a set of statutory rules would be a lot clearer."

Lamb, the district attorney in Americus, said he was considering asking the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling. "I don't think they've given us any guidelines on prejudicial delay," he said, noting the difficulty of retaining evidence and finding witnesses years after a defendant pleaded guilty.

He added that, in a case that was tried to a conviction but then was ordered for a retrial, prosecutors at least have a trial transcript to work with to recreate testimony.

Pete Skandalakis, who directs the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, said his office had been anticipating this kind of decision.

"We also believe, as Justice Peterson eloquently stated in the concurring opinion, that the General Assembly may need to weigh in on this issue as this decision has both procedural and fiscal implications. We will review this issue carefully to determine how best to advise prosecutors going forward."

Attorney General Chris Carr's office issued a statement saying, "We respect the Court's position and are preparing to put their decision into practice."