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  • Wimbush v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-19
    Practice Area: Constitutional Law | Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Judge Reese
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Therian Wimbush, Hawkinsville, for appellant.
    for defendant: Dan Mayfield (District Attorney's Office), Lawrenceville; Daniel Porter (District Attorney), Lawrenceville, for appellee.
    Case Number: A17A2056

    The evidence sufficiently supported defendant's convictions for three counts of cruelty to children in the second degree after she locked one child in a closet in a basement for nearly two years and failed to seek medical care for a second child who had a cancerous tumor.

  • The State v. Stroud

    Publication Date: 2018-04-18
    Practice Area: Constitutional Law | Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Presiding Judge McFadden
    Attorneys: For plaintiff:
    for defendant:
    Case Number: A17A1851

    The trial court properly granted defendant's motion in limine to suppress evidence of his refusal to submit to a state-administered chemical test of his blood, breath, or urine in his trial for DUI-less safe and failure to maintain lane, as the arresting officer's error in misreading the implied consent notice substantively changed the meaning of the notice and misled defendant as to a serious consequence of refusing to submit to testing thus depriving defendant of making an informed decision about whether to consent to the testing.

  • The State v. Orr

    Publication Date: 2018-04-18
    Practice Area: Constitutional Law | Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Judge Branch
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Emily Johnson (District Attorney's Office Rome Judicial Circuit), Rome; Leigh Patterson (District Attorney), Rome; Luke Martin (Floyd County District Attorney), Rome, for appellant.
    for defendant: Benjamin Pierman (McCurdy & Candler LLC), Decatur, for appellee.
    Case Number: A17A2096

    The trial court did not err in granting defendant's motion for new trial following his convictions for family violence battery and cruelty to children in the third degree because the prosecutor impermissibly commented on defendant's pre-arrest silence in her closing argument and the error was not harmless.

  • Smith v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-18
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Judge Andrews
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Jackie Patterson (Attorney at Law), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Jamie Inagawa (Fayette County Solicitor-General), Fayetteville; Joseph Myers (Chief Assistant Solicitor), Fayetteville, for appellee.
    Case Number: A18A0800

    The Court reversed defendant's conviction for DUI-less safe because State failed to prove venue beyond a reasonable doubt.

  • Jones v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-17
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Judge McMillian
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Brent Hutchison (Attorney at Law), Zebulon; Jacob Weldon (Virgil L. Brown Associates, LLC), Zebulon, for appellant.
    for defendant: Jamie Inagawa (Fayette County Solicitor-General), Fayetteville; Joseph Myers (Chief Assistant Solicitor), Fayetteville, for appellee.
    Case Number: A17A1532

    Log Sheet With Handwritten Alcohol Breath Test Results Was Admissible Under Business Record Exception to Hearsay Rule

  • WXIA-TV et al. v. State Of Georgia et al.

    Publication Date: 2018-04-16
    Practice Area: Communications and Media | Constitutional Law | Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Blackwell
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Stephen Derek Bauer, Ian Kyle Byrnside, Cody S. Wigington (Baker & Hostetler LLP), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Clifford Paul Bowden (Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office), Tifton, for appellee. Robert Sparks Highsmith, Jr., Allen Andre Hendrick (Holland & Knight LLP), Atlanta, for amicus appellant. John Robert Mobley, II, Michael Walter Gowen (Tifton Circuit Public Defender's Office), Tifton; Thomas MacIver Clyde, Lesli Nicole Gaither (Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP), Lawrence Lee Bennett, Jr. (L. Lee Bennett Jr, P.C.), Atlanta; David E. Hudson (Hull Barrett, PC), Augusta, for other party.
    Case Number: S17A1804

    In a high-profile murder case, the Supreme Court vacated a gag order that restrained certain classes of persons from making extrajudicial, public statements on certain subjects related to the case for so long as it remained pending, holding that the record did not reveal circumstances sufficiently exceptional to warrant such a restraint.

  • Walsh v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-16
    Practice Area: Criminal Appeals | Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Supreme Court
    Judge: Chief Justice Hines
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: George Chadwell Creal Jr., Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Donna Coleman Stribling, William Thomas Kemp III, Sherry Boston, Kenneth Tyler Edgerton (DeKalb County Solicitor General's Office), Decatur, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17G0884

    The Court of Appeals erred in reversing the trial court's grant of defendant's motion to suppress the results of a horizontal gaze nystagmus test in his DUI trial, as State failed to meet its foundational burden to show that the officer substantially performed the scientific procedures in an acceptable manner."

  • Budhani v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-16
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
    Judge: Presiding Judge Miller
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Brian Steel (The Steel Law Firm, PC.), Atlanta; Miguel Debon (The Debon Law Group, PC), Lawrenceville, for appellant.
    for defendant: Layla Zon (District Attorney), Covington; Jillian Hall (Newton County District Attorney's Office), Covington, for appellee.
    Case Number: A18A0645

    The trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress his custodial statement in his trial for possessing and selling a Schedule-1 controlled substance, a synthetic form of marijuana, after finding that the custodial statement was voluntary.

  • Taylor v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-13
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Supreme Court
    Judge: Presiding Justice Melton
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Christina Rupp Cribbs, Jacob Dennis Rhein (Georgia Public Defender Council - Appellate Division), Atlanta; Russell Robert Jones (Office of the Public Defender), Springfield, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, Ashleigh Dene Headrick (Department of Law), Atlanta; Joshua Bradley Smith, Natalie Spires Paine, Rebecca Ashley Wright (Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office), Augusta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A1627

    The trial court did not err in admitting certain evidence in defendant's trial for the murder of an elderly disabled man for whom defendant provided live-in care.

  • Nations v. The State

    Publication Date: 2018-04-13
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Georgia Supreme Court
    Judge: Justice Boggs
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Juwayn Haddad (Haddad Law Group, LLC), Tucker, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, Elizabeth Haase Brock (Department of Law), Atlanta; Paul L. Howard, Jr., David K. Getachew-Smith, Sr., Lyndsey Hurst Rudder (Fulton County District Attorney's Office), Atlanta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A1597

    The trial court did not plainly err in admitting into evidence defendant's prior armed robbery conviction in his murder trial because, pretermitting whether admission of the evidence amounted to clear or obvious error, defendant could not show that the admission of the evidence affected his substantial rights, in light of the strength of the evidence of his guilt.