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Keller v. State

Defendant could not appeal his convictions until the trial court entered a written sentence on each count of his multi-count indictment.

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We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in dismissing one of Keller’s appeals that was before it.1 We conclude that when a multi-count indictment is the subject of one trial and the fact-finder returns a verdict of guilty on each count of the indictment, the case is not final and subject to appeal until a sentence has been entered on each count of the indictment. Because the Court of Appeals’s dismissal of Keller’s appeal is inconsistent with this rule, we reverse its judgment and remand the case to it for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Under OCGA § 5-6-34 a 1, Keller had a right to a direct appeal from a “final judgment, that is to say, where the case is no longer pending in the court below.” In interpreting § 5-6-34 a 1, the Georgia Court of Appeals has held that a criminal case is not final but is pending in the trial court until a written judgment of conviction and sentence is entered in the trial court.2 Although Littlejohn and Crolley involved cases in which there was a one-count indictment and thus one sentence to enter, the principle of those cases applies with equal force to cases such as Keller’s in which multiple counts of an indictment are tried together. In this regard, other courts have held that in such multi-count trials, the case is not final and ripe for appeal until a sentence has been entered on each count of the indictment that was the subject of the trial.3 Based on the rationale of Littlejohn, Crolley, and the cases from other jurisdictions, we conclude that when multiple counts of an indictment are tried together and the trial court does not enter a written sentence on one or more of the counts, the case is still pending in the trial court and is not a final judgment under § 5-6-34 a 1.

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