Thomas v. State

The defendant failed to establish that his lawyer would have done anything differently if his co-defendant's attorney had not also worked for the same public defender office or that he slighted the defense due to any alleged conflict.

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A Fulton County jury found Marco Thomas guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, OCGA § 16-11-131 b. Following the denial of his motion for a new trial, Thomas appeals, contending that the trial court erred in finding that Thomas waived his counsel’s conflict of interest and in considering a previous conviction in aggravation of his sentence. In addition, he contends he received ineffective assistance of counsel. For the reasons explained below, we affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict,1 the evidence shows the following. On January 19, 2007, the “Red Dog” team of the Atlanta Police Department conducted surveillance of an apartment complex which had generated complaints of rampant drug activity. After observing Derrick White make sales to three or four customers in cars, four officers drove up in a marked patrol car to White and a group of men standing near him. Two officers saw Thomas, who was in that group, pull a silver object from his waistband and put it on the ground in front of a parked car’s tire. After ordering the group of men to lie on the ground and handcuffing them, the officers retrieved the silver object Thomas had placed by the tire; it was a loaded handgun. The officers arrested Thomas for carrying a concealed weapon and arrested White and another man in the group, Kevin Lee, for possession of drugs and other offenses.

1. Thomas contends that, because his counsel and Kevin Lee’s counsel both worked for the Metro Conflict Defender Office, his counsel operated under an inherent conflict of interest. Thomas contends that the trial court erred in failing to inquire before trial into whether Thomas intelligently and voluntarily waived this conflict of interest.

Thomas v. State

The defendant failed to establish that his lawyer would have done anything differently if his co-defendant's attorney had not also worked for the same public defender office or that he slighted the defense due to any alleged conflict.

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