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Humphrey v. Williams

The habeas court properly set aside the defendant's convictions, as his counsel was deficient in failing to effectively investigate and obtain court records regarding an alleged similar transaction.

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In 2002, a jury in Decatur County convicted Jimmie Ray Williams of sexually molesting his 13-year-old stepdaughter and her 14-year-old friend in 2000, after a trial at which his 20-year-old daughter was allowed to testify, as a similar transaction, that Williams touched her sexually four times in one night in 1993, when she was 11 years old and living with him in Florida. The trial court sentenced Williams to serve a total of 20 years in prison followed by 20 years on probation, and the Court of Appeals affirmed in Williams v. State, 263 Ga. App. 22 587 SE2d 187 2003.

In August 2004, Williams filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus alleging, among other claims, that Billy Grantham, his attorney at trial and on direct appeal, provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Williams claimed that Grantham conducted a deficient pretrial investigation by failing to obtain Florida court records showing that the alleged similar transaction never took place. Williams argued that if Grantham had conducted a competent investigation and found those records, his daughter’s testimony would have been excluded before trial or successfully impeached at trial, creating a reasonable probability that the trial verdict would have been more favorable to Williams.

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