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Drane v. State

The defendant's failure to demonstrate that he took diligent steps to ascertain what testimony his co-defendant might have been willing to give during the more than 17 years since trial was an independently sufficient basis to affirm the trial court's complete denial of extraordinary motion for a new trial.

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A jury convicted Leonard Maurice Drane of committing murder and aggravated battery against Renee Blackmon and sentenced Drane to death for the murder. Initially on direct appeal, this Court affirmed on a number of issues and held that the evidence for the convictions and for the statutory aggravating circumstances supporting the death sentence was sufficient. See Drane v. State, 265 Ga. 255 455 SE2d 27 1995. However, this Court remanded the case for the trial court, the Superior Court of Elbert County, to conduct a hearing regarding the State’s use of peremptory strikes during jury selection and regarding the trial court’s exclusion during the guilt/innocence phase of the testimony of a jail inmate to whom Drane’s co-defendant, Robert David Willis, had allegedly confessed. Id. at 256-257 2 and 3. After a hearing was held in the trial court on remand, this Court affirmed Drane’s convictions and death sentence. See Drane v. State, 271 Ga. 849 523 SE2d 301 1999.

Drane filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Butts County in November of 2000, which was denied in February of 2009. In October of 2010, in response to Drane’s application for certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial of habeas relief, this Court remanded Drane’s habeas case for further consideration of two issues not relevant to Drane’s present appeal.

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