Warren, Justice, concurring. Factually, this case is about whether the Court of Appeals correctly affirmed the trial court’s denial of Alfredo Capote’s motion to dismiss an indictment against him on the ground that its underlying factual findings were not “clearly erroneous.” See Capote v. State, 368 Ga. App. 331 (890 SE2d 75) (2023). But our Court did not grant a writ of certiorari to review that fact-specific question; we granted certiorari to examine the correct standard of review appellate courts should apply when reviewing a trial court’s factual findings in a criminal case. In doing so, we posed two questions: (1) whether this Court’s precedent interpreting the clearly-erroneous standard of review of factual findings in criminal cases—which equates that standard with the any-evidence standard—is correctly decided; and (2) if it is not correctly decided, whether this Court’s precedent on the clearly-erroneous standard should be overruled. Those questions suggested an interest in examining the difference, if any, between the any-evidence standard and the clearly-erroneous standard—especially given that this Court has equated the two in both civil and criminal cases. Having now received and reviewed the full record, and after review of the parties’ briefs and oral arguments, the Court has determined that the writ of certiorari was improvidently granted, so it vacates the writ and denies Capote’s petition for certiorari. Because I now see that this case is not a good vehicle for deciding the issues we set forth in granting certiorari, I concur in that decision. I write separately, however, to offer some historical perspective about the standards of review Georgia appellate courts have applied in reviewing trial court fact-findings in criminal cases, and to consider where we go from here. * For a discussion about standards of review to make sense, it is helpful to understand the factual context in which the question about the standards arose. That’s because a standard of review often feels like an academic rubric until it is applied to a particular set of factual or legal findings—and it is often only at that point that a difference in a standard of review bubbles to the surface. In light of that need for context, I review the relevant background of this case before reviewing the standards of review at issue here. 1. Factual and Procedural Background. (a) The Court of Appeals summarized the pertinent facts of this case as follows. Alfredo Capote appeals from the trial court’s order denying his motion to dismiss a pending indictment based on the State’s alleged failure to comply with Article III (a) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act (“IAD”), OCGA § 42-6-20. . . . “The IAD is an interstate compact intended, among other things, to provide procedures for the orderly disposition of outstanding charges against prisoners incarcerated in out-of-state facilities and detainers based upon such charges.” Clater v. State, 266 Ga. 511, 512 (2), 467 S.E.2d 537 (1996). The IAD is codified in Georgia at OCGA § 426-20. At issue in this case is Article III of the IAD, which provides the procedure for an accused who is indicted in this State while incarcerated in another state to obtain a “speedy trial” – to be tried within 180 days of the required notice – on the Georgia charges. Subsection (b) of Article III further provides: The written notice and request for final disposition referred to in paragraph (a) here shall be given or sent by the prisoner to the warden, commissioner of corrections or other official having custody of him, who shall promptly forward it together with the certificate to the appropriate prosecuting official and court by registered or certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, return receipt requested. However, the 180-day time period “does not commence until the prisoner’s request for final disposition of the charges against him has actually been delivered to the court and the prosecuting officer of the jurisdiction that lodged the detainer against him.” Fex v. Michigan, 507 U. S. 43, 52, 113 S.Ct. 1085, 122 L.Ed.2d 406 (1993). See also OCGA § 42-6-20, Article III (a) (defendant shall be brought to trial within 180 days after “he shall have caused to be delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court of the prosecuting officer’s jurisdiction written notice of . . . his request for a final disposition to be made of the indictment”). Pertinent here, the record shows that, following a conviction on federal wire fraud charges, Capote was incarcerated in the Federal Correctional Complex in Beaumont, Texas (“FCC”). Shortly before he was convicted on the federal charge, Capote was indicted in Gwinnett County, Georgia on numerous charges. In December 2020, a detainer was placed on Capote in accordance with the IAD. On July 7, 2021, Capote requested that the FCC warden file on his behalf an IAD notice and request for disposition of the Gwinnett County charges. On that same day, the FCC warden sent a letter to Patsy Austin-Gatson, the Gwinnett County District Attorney, notifying her of Capote’s IAD request for disposition and attaching certain forms required in connection with the request. A form attached to the letter had a preprinted notification that the letter had been sent to the prosecuting official and to the clerk of court by certified mail, return receipt requested. On that same day, the warden also sent Capote written verification that his IAD request had been sent. No action was taken on the Gwinnett County charges and on January 28, 2022, Capote filed a motion to dismiss for failure to dispose of the charges within 180 days as required by Article III (a) of the IAD. The State opposed the motion, arguing, among other things, that neither the Gwinnett County District Attorney nor the Gwinnett County Clerk of Superior Court had ever received the IAD disposition request. A hearing was held on the motion on April 22, 2022. At the hearing, in addition to submitting the letter from the warden addressed to the District Attorney, Capote also introduced copies of the return receipts for “Article addressed to: Gwinnett County District Clerk Attention Tiana P. Garner” and “Article addressed to: the Gwinnett Justice and As minis tratic [sic] Attention: Patsy Austin- Gaston [sic]“; these return receipts were stamped received by “Gwinnett County Mail Services” on July 27, 2021. The State presented the testimony of an Investigator with the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s office concerning her efforts to locate Capote’s IAD request. The Investigator testified that she was familiar with the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s procedures on how IAD disposition requests were handled and tracked, and she testified in detail regarding the steps she took in attempting to locate Capote’s IAD request. She also testified about who in the office would have handled or received copies of an IAD request. She found no evidence documenting receipt of the IAD request, and she was unable to find anybody in the District Attorney’s office with any knowledge of the IAD request. The investigator also said that she looked through the Gwinnett Superior Court’s Odyssey filing system and was unable to find any documents related to Capote’s IAD request in the court’s files.[1] On June 8, 2022, the trial court entered an order denying Capote’s motion to dismiss. Because there was no evidence that the return receipts introduced by Capote at the hearing corresponded to the documents supposedly sent by the FCC warden, the trial court determined that there was nothing to “affirmatively establish[ ]” that the letter sent by the FCC to the District Attorney’s office complied with the Article III (b) requirement that the IAD notice be sent to the appropriate prosecuting official and court by registered or certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, return receipt requested. Further, crediting the testimony of the Investigator, the trial court also found that there was no evidence that the request was actually received by the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s office or the Clerk of Court. Capote, 368 Ga. App. at 331-333. (b) Court of Appeals’s Analysis. After granting Capote’s request for interlocutory review, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. See Capote, 368 Ga. App. at 333-334. In reviewing the trial court’s findings of fact, the Court of Appeals explained that the exhibits Capote presented in support of his motion may have shown compliance with the mailing requirements of the IAD sufficient to create a rebuttable presumption that the letter was received by someone. But we disagree with Capote that the trial court was required to find that the letter was delivered to the prosecuting officer and the appropriate court. The return receipt showed only that it was delivered to Gwinnett County Mail Services, and the trial court specifically credited the testimony of [Investigator Tarver] in determining that the IAD request had not actually been delivered to the prosecuting officer or the court. This finding was supported by at least some evidence, and thus we cannot say that the trial court clearly erred. Id. (emphasis added). In a specially concurring opinion, Presiding Judge Dillard “acknowledge [d] that both parties presented compelling evidence as to whether Capote’s IAD request was delivered to both the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office and the Gwinnett County Clerk of the Superior Court.” Id. at 334 (Dillard, P.J., concurring specially). He emphasized, however, that the applicable standard of review for the trial court’s factual findings was clear error; that “the clearly erroneous standard is, of course, equivalent to the highly deferential ‘any evidence’ standard”; and that because “there was some evidence supporting the trial court’s conclusion that, for whatever reason, the district attorney’s office and the superior court did not actually receive Capote’s IAD request,” the trial court was due to be affirmed. See id. at 334-335 (citing Morrell v. State, 313 Ga. 247, 251 (869 SE2d 447) (2022)) (emphasis in original) (cleaned up). 2. This Case Does Not Present an Adequate Vehicle For Resolving The Questions Presented on Certiorari About the Standard of Review for Trial Court Fact-Findings in Criminal Cases. As the specially concurring opinion in the Court of Appeals highlighted, we have stated in our criminal precedents that an appellate court “accept[s] a trial court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous and review[s] a trial court’s ultimate decision on the issue for an abuse of discretion.” Morrell, 313 Ga. at 251. Somewhat confusingly, however, “[t]he clearly erroneous standard is equivalent to the highly deferential ‘any evidence’ standard, which means we will not reverse a trial court’s factual findings if there is any evidence in the record to support them.” Id. In the present matter, the Court of Appeals applied the “any- evidence” standard to the trial court’s factual findings and affirmed the denial of Capote’s motion to dismiss. See Capote, 368 Ga. App. at 333-334. On certiorari, Capote contends that instead of applying the Georgia any-evidence standard (and the Georgia clearly- erroneous standard that follows), this Court should apply the federal clearly-erroneous standard[2]—and that application of that different standard would require a reversal based on the very same facts. Capote points to that federal standard—that is, that a “finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,” United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co, 333 U.S. 364, 395 (68 SCt 525, 92 LEd 746) (1948)—and contends that the trial court’s factual findings that “[t]here is no evidence that establishes that the return receipts presented by [Capote] were for the request sent by the” warden and that “there was no record of [Capote's Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act ("IAD") disposition] request[s] [were] received by either the DA’s Office or the Clerk of Court” were clearly erroneous. Id. But even applying that federal standard, I would not be able to muster a “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed” here. See id. To that end, the record shows that Capote presented several exhibits at the hearing on his motion to dismiss—including an exhibit containing a written memorandum titled “RESPONSE TO INMATE REQUEST TO STAFF” from the warden of the Federal Correctional Complex in Beaumont, Texas, confirming that he “mailed via certified return [r]eceipt” Capote’s IAD disposition requests to the “District Attorney, District Clerk and IAD Administrator of the State of Georgia,” and a copy of the IAD disposition request addressed to the Gwinnett County District Attorney, with the “Clerk of Court” and “State IAD Administrator” carbon copied. He also presented copies of return receipts for “Article Addressed to: Gwinnett County District Clerk[,]” “ Attention Tiana P. Garner” and “Article Addressed to: the Gwinnett Justice and Asministratic[,]” [sic] “Attention: Patsy Austin-Gastson [sic],” that were stamped as received by “Gwinnett County Mail Services” on July 27, 2021. But none of those exhibits affirmatively established the contents of the mail the warden of the Federal Correctional Complex in Beaumont, Texas, sent on Capote’s behalf. And they did not definitively establish that the Gwinnett County District Attorney, the Gwinnett County Clerk of Court, or Georgia’s IAD administrator actually received Capote’s IAD disposition request.[3] Additionally, an investigator with the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s office testified that “she was unable to find anybody in the District Attorney’s office with any knowledge of the IAD request[,]” and “ she looked through the Gwinnett Superior Court’s Odyssey filing system and was unable to find any documents related to Capote’s IAD request in the court’s files.” Capote, 368 Ga. App. at 333. And although the investigator admitted on cross-examination that the certified mail receipts Capote presented at the evidentiary hearing bore “RECEIVED” stamps from the Gwinnett County Mail Services—which she testified receives mail on behalf of the Clerk of Court and the District Attorney—the trial court credited the investigator’s testimony about there being “no record of [Capote's IAD disposition] request being received by either the DA’s Office or the Clerk of Court.” As a result, whatever questions I may have about the District Attorney’s and the Clerk of Court’s process for receiving, cataloging, and distributing mail (and, assuming its authenticity, how a “RECEIVED” stamp could have been affixed to the return receipts in this case without either the DA’s Office or the Clerk of Court knowing), I would not be able to say that the exhibits Capote presented necessarily contradicted the investigator’s story or that the investigator’s story was “so internally inconsistent or implausible on its face that a reasonable factfinder would not credit it.” Anderson v. Bessemer City, N.C., 470 U.S. 564, 575 (105 SCt 1504, 84 LEd 518) (1985). In sum: even applying the federal clearly-erroneous standard of review, I would not be able to say that the trial court’s findings— including its factual findings and its decision to credit the investigator’s testimony as noted above—leave me “with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” U.S. Gypsum, 333 U.S. at 395. And if that is so, the standard of review this Court applies to the trial court’s findings—that is, whether this Court applies the federal clearly-erroneous standard, as opposed to Georgia’s any-evidence standard—makes no practical difference to the resolution of Capote’s appeal. For that reason, this case does not provide an adequate vehicle to answer the questions presented on certiorari, and I therefore concur in the dismissal of Capote’s petition as improvidently granted. 3. The History of Georgia’s Standard for Reviewing Trial Court Fact-Findings in Criminal Cases Dismissing this case as improvidently granted leaves untouched the standard of review for criminal cases this Court articulated in Reed v. State, 291 Ga. 10, 13 (727 SE2d 112) (2012), and reiterated in Morrell v. State, 313 Ga. 247, 251 (869 SE2d 447) (2022): For evidentiary rulings, we accept a trial court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous and review a trial court’s ultimate decision on the issue for an abuse of discretion. The clearly erroneous standard is equivalent to the highly deferential “any evidence” standard, which means we will not reverse a trial court’s factual findings if there is any evidence in the record to support them. Morrell, 313 Ga. at 251 (cleaned up) (citing Reed, 291 Ga. at 13). But it impresses me as noteworthy—if not a bit unusual—that our Court has concluded that two standards that appear to be textually distinct (that is, the “any evidence” and the “clearly erroneous” standards) are the same for purposes of appellate review of trial court fact-findings in criminal cases. It is all the more unusual given that our Court typically ascribes meaning to differences in text, cf. Florida Rock Indus., Inc. v. Clayton County Bd of Comm’rs, 316 Ga. 380, 381 (888 SE2d 573) (2023) (Peterson, P.J., concurring) (“[A]s a matter of plain meaning, it is hard not to notice the difference in terms. ‘Any evidence’ seems to mean what it says, so “substantial evidence” would presumably have to mean something else. After all, we normally presume “that the legislature did not intend to enact meaningless language.”) (emphasis omitted), and the phrases “any evidence” and “clearly erroneous” do not by their plain language appear to signify the same type of review. Assessing the correctness of this standard of review requires a brief review of how that standard developed in the first place. And as explained more below, I have more questions than answers when it comes to the evolution of Georgia’s “any evidence”/”clearly erroneous” standard of review of trial court fact-findings in criminal appeals. (a) Application of a federal clearly-erroneous standard in motion-to-suppress cases in the 1970s. In the 1970s, this Court began articulating a specific standard of review when reviewing a trial court’s fact-findings in criminal cases.[4] We did so in a set of cases pertaining to motions to suppress. For the most part, however, the standard of review we applied in those cases was neither an “any evidence” type of review nor the type of “clearly erroneous” standard we now equate with it. Instead, we applied some version of a clearly- erroneous standard derived from federal case law. Specifically, in Johnson v. State, 233 Ga. 58, 58 (209 SE2d 629) (1974), in reviewing a trial court’s factual findings regarding an “alleged confession made . . . during an in-custody interrogation by a law enforcement officer,” we stated: “Factual and credibility determinations of this sort made by a trial judge after a suppression hearing must be accepted by appellate courts unless such determinations are clearly erroneous.”[5] Id. To support that proposition, we cited no Georgia case. Instead, we cited—without explanation or analysis—two federal cases: Lego v. Twomey, 404 U.S. 477 (92 SCt 619, 30 LE2d 618) (1972), and United States v. Watson, 469 F2d 362, 365 (5th Cir. 1972). It is not at all clear to me how Lego articulates, or even supports, the type of clearly-erroneous standard for which we cited it; Lego is a federal habeas case in which the United States Supreme Court evaluated the standard by which a state must prove that a criminal defendant’s confession is voluntary. See Lego, 404 U.S. at 489 (holding in relevant part that “the prosecution must prove at least by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession was voluntary. Of course, the States are free, pursuant to their own law, to adopt a higher standard.”). In Watson, by contrast, the Fifth Circuit did state the standard of review we later set forth in Johnson—but did so without citing any legal authority for that proposition. See Watson, 469 F2d at 365 (“In passing on whether the government has shown admissibility by a preponderance, we must, of course, accept the factual determinations and credibility choices made by the trial judge unless they are clearly erroneous.”). Still lacking explanation for why we selected and applied a standard derived from these federal cases,[6] we continued citing and relying on Lego and Watson (and their progeny) over the next two decades for the proposition that “[f]actual and credibility determinations of this sort made by a trial judge after a suppression hearing must be accepted by appellate courts unless such determinations are clearly erroneous.” See, e.g., Woodruff v. State, 233 Ga. 840, 843 (213 SE2d 689) (1975) (“[T]he trial court’s decision on questions of fact and credibility at a suppression hearing must be accepted unless clearly erroneous.”) (citing Lego, 404 U.S. at 477; Watson, 469 F2d at 365; Johnson, 233 Ga. at 58)); Gates v. State, 244 Ga. 587, 590-591 (261 SE2d 349) (1979) (“Unless clearly erroneous, a trial court’s findings as to factual determinations and credibility relating to the admissibility of a confession will be upheld on appeal.”) (citing Watson, 469 F2d at 365; Johnson, 233 Ga. at 58; and High v. State, 233 Ga. 153 (210 SE2d 673) (1974)); Crawford v. State, 245 Ga. 89, 90-91 (263 SE2d 131) (1980) (“Unless clearly erroneous, a trial court’s findings as to factual determinations and credibility relating to the admissibility of a confession will be upheld on appeal.”) (citing Lego, 404 U.S. at 477; Watson, 469 F2d at 365; and Gates, 244 Ga. at 587)); Berry v. State, 254 Ga. 101, 104 (326 SE2d 748) (1985) (“Unless clearly erroneous, a trial court’s findings as to factual determinations and credibility relating to the admissibility of a confession will be upheld on appeal.”) (citing Gates, 244 Ga. at 590-591; Crawford, 245 Ga. at 89)). (b) The standard of review began to evolve in the 1990s. We added gloss to—and ultimately sowed confusion about—the standard of review for trial court fact-findings in criminal cases in Tate v. State, 264 Ga. 53, 54 (440 SE2d 646) (1994). In Tate, the defendant moved to suppress evidence of cocaine that was found in his vehicle during a traffic stop; the trial court granted the motion to suppress; and the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court. Id. at 53. In rejecting the Court of Appeals’s reasoning, we articulated certain “principles” that should “guide” an appellate court’s review of the trial court’s factual findings on a motion to suppress: First, when a motion to suppress is heard by the trial judge, that judge sits as the trier of facts. The trial judge “hears the evidence, and his findings based upon conflicting evidence are analogous to the verdict of a jury and should not be disturbed by a reviewing court if there is any evidence to support it.” State v. Swift, 232 Ga. 535, 536, 207 S.E.2d 459 (1974). Second, the trial court’s decision with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous. Woodruff v. State, 233 Ga. 840, 844, 213 S.E.2d 689 (1975). Tate, 264 Ga. at 54 (emphasis in original) (cleaned up). [7] On one hand, we resurrected Swift—the pre-Johnson motion to suppress case cited above in footnote in which we applied the any-evidence standard of review—for the principle that a “reviewing court” “should not . . . disturb[]” a trial court’s “ findings based upon conflicting evidence . . . if there is any evidence to support it.” Tate, 264 Ga. at 54 (quoting Swift, 232 Ga. at 536). We supported that conclusion by reasoning that when a “trial judge hears the evidence, and his findings [are] based upon conflicting evidence,” they are “analogous to the verdict of a jury.” Tate, 264 Ga. at 54 (quoting Swift, 232 Ga. at 536). And on the other hand, we explained that “the trial court’s decision with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous.” Id. (emphasis in original). In reaching that conclusion, we cited Woodruff v. State, 233 Ga. 840, 844 (213 SE2d 689) (1975)—a progeny of Johnson in which we applied a federally-imported clearly-erroneous standard in reviewing a trial court’s factual findings. See Tate, 264 Ga. at 54. With the announcement of these “principles,” Tate created tension that is difficult to reconcile: within the same opinion, our Court purported to instruct appellate courts to review a trial court’s findings of fact on a motion to suppress using both an any-evidence standard (a highly deferential standard) and a clearly-erroneous standard (also a deferential standard, but one that is generally less so than the any-evidence standard). Specifically, Tate’s first “principle” instructs appellate courts to review trial courts’ factfindings in criminal motion-to-suppress cases under the any- evidence standard, whereas Tates second “principle” instructs appellate courts that a different set of findings—a trial court’s “decision with regard to questions of fact and credibility“—”must be accepted unless clearly erroneous.” See id. at 54 (emphasis in original). It is hard to say what to make of Tate. Whether Tates treatment of the standards of review in that criminal case inadvertently conflated the any-evidence and clearly-erroneous tests in its first two “principles” or was instead an attempt to set out nuanced aspects of appellate review,[8] the case serves as an important marker because of the apparent confusion that followed. That confusion bears out in many of the hundreds of Georgia cases that have cited Tate for its standard of review “principles,” but appear to conflate the any-evidence and clearly-erroneous standards or otherwise recite what appears to be a dual standard of review that makes it difficult to parse which standard this Court actually applied and whether the Court even viewed the two standards as distinct. See, e.g., State v. David, 269 Ga. 533, 535 (501 SE2d 494) (1998) (“In reviewing a trial court’s decision on a motion to suppress, an appellate court must adopt the trial court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous and not supported by any evidence admitted at the suppression hearing.”); State v. Thomas, 275 Ga. 167, 168 (562 SE2d 501) (2002) (stating that “[a] trial court’s findings of fact will not be deemed to be clearly erroneous if there is any evidence to support them” and holding that “the trial court’s findings were authorized by the evidence in the record and are not clearly erroneous”); Davis v. State, 278 Ga. 305, 306-307 (602 SE2d 563) (2004) (explaining that “[a] trial court’s findings of fact will not be deemed to be clearly erroneous if there is any evidence to support them” and holding that “the trial court’s findings were authorized by the evidence in the record and are not clearly erroneous”); Brown v. State, 278 Ga. 724, 726-727 (609 SE2d 312) (2004) (explaining, in ruling on a motion to suppress, that “the trial court sits as the trier of facts, and its findings regarding them are not disturbed on appeal if there is any evidence to support them; the trial court’s decisions with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous, and a reviewing court construes the evidence most favorably to the trial court’s findings[]“) (citing Tate, 290 Ga. at 54); Miller, 288 Ga. at 287 (explaining that “[t]o properly follow the first principle, we must focus on the facts found by the trial court in its order, as the trial court sits as trier of fact[,]” and apply the clearly-erroneous standard to the trial court’s “ overt[]” credibility determination underlying a finding of fact in a suppression order) (citing Tate, 290 Ga. at 54) (emphasis omitted). (c) We set forth a single standard of review in 2012. Against this backdrop, in 2012 we addressed in the context of a criminal case the standard for appellate courts to apply when reviewing a trial court’s factual findings. In that case, Reed v. State, 291 Ga. 10, 13 (727 SE2d 112) (2012), the defendant was convicted of murder (among other crimes) and contended that the trial court had erred in admitting similar-transaction evidence against him at trial. In the course of addressing a different standard—the standard for reviewing a trial court’s admission of similar-transaction evidence— we stated: In Georgia, it is well-settled that the ‘clearly erroneous’ standard for reviewing findings of fact is equivalent to the highly deferential ‘any evidence’ test. Id. at 13 (also distinguishing the “abuse of discretion” standard from the “clearly erroneous” standard, explaining that “‘abuse of discretion’ . . . is at least slightly less deferential than the ‘any evidence’ test,” and deducing that the “abuse of discretion” standard is “different from and not quite as deferential as the ‘clearly erroneous’ test”). To support our characterization of this standard as “well-settled,” we cited seven Georgia appellate cases—but no criminal cases from this Court.[9] And we articulated this standard without reference to Tate, though in some sense we created an amalgam of Tates first two “principles.”[10] We bolstered our conclusion by re-examining language from a decades-old habeas corpus case, Balkcom v. Vickers, 220 Ga. 345, 348 (138 SE2d 868) (1964), and overruling it “to the extent that it imp lie [d] that, in Georgia, the ‘any evidence’ rule differs from the ‘clearly erroneous’ standard.” Reed, 291 Ga. at 13.[11] Despite whatever shortcomings Reed’s reasoning may have had, see footnote 9, it seems clear that Reed attempted to eliminate any doubts or confusion that stemmed from, or lingered after, the decades of cases noted above in which this Court inconsistently applied the any-evidence and clearly-erroneous standards of review. And by expressly overruling Georgia cases “to the extent that [they] imp lie [d] that, in Georgia, the ‘any evidence’ rule differs from the ‘clearly erroneous’ standard,” Reed, 291 Ga. at 13, Reed overruled more than just the offending portions of Vickers: it also had the effect of overruling, sub silentio, earlier cases from this Court to the extent such cases purported to apply a federal clearly-erroneous standard to a trial court’s factual findings in criminal cases.[12] See Mobley v. State, 307 Ga. 59, 75 n.20 (834 SE2d 785) (2019) (explaining how a decision of this Court can “amount[] to a sub silentio overruling” of an earlier case of this Court) (citation and punctuation omitted). Why did we take this approach in Reed, relying almost exclusively on civil cases, to establish a standard of review in criminal appeals? I am not sure, but I suspect it has something to do with the parallel and also-inconsistent development of standards of review in civil appeals. See, e.g., Code § 81A-152 (1969) (“In all actions in Superior Court tried upon the facts without a jury, the court shall find the facts specially and state separately its conclusions of law thereon and judgment shall be entered . . . . Findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.”) (emphasis added); OCGA § 9-11-52 (1987) (succeeding Code § 81A-152; also setting forth a “clearly erroneous” standard of review for trial court fact-findings in civil cases).[13] See also Brook Forest Enters, Inc. v. Paulding County, 231 Ga. 695, 695 (203 SE2d 860) (1974) (in a civil case, referencing the “clearly erroneous” language from Code § 81A-152 and then applying some version of an any-evidence standard); Hall v. Ault, 240 Ga. 585, 586 (242 SE2d 101) (1978) (in reviewing an administrative proceeding, construing the clearly-erroneous standard of review in the predecessor to OCGA § 45-20-9 (m)[14] as equivalent to an any-evidence standard and relying in part on Brook Forest to do so). Why do I think that? Because Hall v. Ault is one of the handful of non-criminal cases we cited in Reed to support the proposition that “any evidence” equals “clearly erroneous” and “clearly erroneous” equals “any evidence” when an appellate court reviews a trial court’s fact-findings in a criminal case. As best I can tell, it seems that Reed borrowed from a line of non-criminal cases—including Brook Forest and Hall—to erase the distinction, if any, between the any-evidence and clearly-erroneous standards of review of trial court factual findings in the criminal context. Whatever our motivation and (unexplained) reasoning was in articulating the singular “clearly erroneous”/”any evidence” standard in Reed, our Court has been applying that standard for a dozen years in criminal appeals. We doubled down on that standard, citing Reed, only two years ago in Morrell v. State: For evidentiary rulings, we accept a trial court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous and review a trial court’s ultimate decision on the issue for an abuse of discretion. The clearly erroneous standard is equivalent to the highly deferential “any evidence” standard, which means we will not reverse a trial court’s factual findings if there is any evidence in the record to support them. Morrell v. State, 313 Ga. 247, 251 (869 SE2d 447) (2022) (citing Jordan v. State, 305 Ga. 12, 17 (823 SE2d 336) (2019); Reed, 291 Ga. at 13. And we continue to apply that standard in criminal cases today. See, e.g., Pierce v. State, S24A0525, 2024 WL 4350982 (Ga. Oct. 1, 2024). 4. Conclusion I had hoped that this case would present an opportunity to determine an appropriate framework or set of principles for determining the proper standard for appellate review of factfindings in criminal cases. But the parties here have not offered a persuasive theory on that front. And as shown above, my efforts have generated more questions than answers. Without anything approaching certainty as to the right set of principles for determining the appropriate standard of review in this context, I see no basis for revisiting that question. In the meantime, Reed‘s emphatic rejection of the notion that the any-evidence standard differs from the clearly-erroneous standard, as well as this Court’s continued application over the past decade of the standard Reed articulated, shows that Reeds standard of review for a trial court’s findings in criminal cases remains intact today. Georgia law is thus clear—at least at present, and in the criminal context—that we “accept a trial court’s factual findings unless clearly erroneous” and “[t]he clearly erroneous standard is equivalent to the highly deferential ‘any evidence’ standard, which means we will not reverse a trial court’s factual findings if there is any evidence in the record to support them.” Morrell, 313 Ga. at 251. See also Reed, 251 Ga. at 13. I am authorized to state that Justice Pinson joins in this concurrence.
