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  • Smith v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-30
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Expert Witnesses
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Grant
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Dell Jackson, Decatur, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Jason Matthew Rea, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta; Paul L. Howard Jr., Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder (Fulton County District Attorney's Office), Atlanta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A1170

    The trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing State's expert to testify that in his opinion the victimfs injuries were the result of abuse rather than accident and the Court, therefore, affirmed defendant's convictions for felony murder and other crimes in connection with the death of a 15-month-old girl.

  • Shuman v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-27
    Practice Area: Civil Appeals | Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Nahmias
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Ernest Byrd Shuman, Nicholls, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta; Robert Ray Auman, Bradfield M. Shealy, Michelle Thomas Harrison (Southern Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office), Thomasville, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A1229

    The trial court properly denied defendant's motion for an out-of-time appeal from his 1990 murder convictions because he failed to allege that ineffective assistance by his plea counsel was the reason that he had not filed a timely appeal.

  • Taylor v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-26
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Benham
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Larry L. Duttweiler, Gainseville, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, Meghan Hobbs Hill (Department of Law), Atlanta; Lee Darragh, Wanda Lynn Vance (Northeastern Circuit District Attorney's Office), Gainesville, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A1033

    In defendant's murder trial, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing State to cross-examine defendant about an altercation with his girlfriend that resulted in the girlfriend kicking him out of her car because he punched her in the face, as defendant had testified dishonestly about the reasons why his girlfriend kicked him out of her car and so the evidence was admissible for impeachment purposes.

  • Hampton v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-25
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Chief Justice Hines
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Raina Jeager Nadler, Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, S. Taylor Johnston (Department of Law), Atlanta; D. Victor Reynolds, Michael Scott Carlson (Cobb County District Attorney's Office), Marietta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0984

    The evidence supported defendant's convictions for malice murder and related crimes after he fatally shot a man at a bar where defendant sometimes worked as a security guard.

  • Moran v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-25
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Benham
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Debra Kay Jefferson, Lawrenceville, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, Matthew Blackwell Crowder (Department of Law), Atlanta; Lee Darragh, Shiv Sachdeva (Northeastern Circuit District Attorney's Office), Gainesville, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0967

    The evidence supported defendant's convictions for malice murder and related crimes and the trial court did not err in admitting photographs of text messages on defendant's cell phone, as defendant had executed a Fourth Amendment waiver as a condition of her probation for other crimes and there was reasonable suspicion that defendant was involved in a murder.

  • Blackmon v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-25
    Practice Area: Criminal Law
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Nahmias
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Genevieve Holmes (Georgia Public Defender Council), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr, Ashleigh Dene Headrick (Department of Law), Atlanta; Lenny I. Krick, Sherry Boston (DeKalb County District Attorneys Office), Decatur, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0993

    Defendant failed to prove his several ineffective assistance of counsel claims following his convictions for felony murder and other crimes arising out of a drug deal gone wrong.

  • Williams v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-24
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Peterson
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Wallace Carter Clayton II (Jones, Morrison & Womack, PC.), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Michael Alexander Oldham, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta; Michael Scott Carlson, D. Victor Reynolds (Cobb County District Attorney's Office), Marietta; Gregg M. Jacobson (Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams and Aughtry), Atlanta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0764

    The evidence supported defendant's conviction for the malice murder of his wife and any error in the trial court's decisions to admit evidence of defendant's prior bad acts and allow State to perform a demonstration was harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt.

  • The State v. Wilkins

    Publication Date: 2017-10-24
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Boggs
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Jerome M. Rothschild Jr., Lyndsey Hurst Rudder (Fulton County District Attorney's Office), Atlanta; Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Robert Warren Attridge Jr. (Law Offices of Robert W. Attridge Jr. PA), Tybee Island; Robert Lawrence Persse (Office of the Public Defender, Eastern Judicial Circuit), Savannah, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0873

    The trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting defendant's pretrial motion in limine to exclude incriminating statements his co-defendant made with regard to a double murder, as the evidence supported the trial court's conclusion that the co-defendant did not make the challenged statements "in furtherance of the conspiracy" and the statements, therefore, did not fall within the exception to the hearsay rule provided by O.C.G.A. 24-8-801 subsection (d) (2) (E).

  • Davis v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-24
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Chief Justice Hines
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Leigh Ann Webster (Strickland Webster, LLC), Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Paula Khristian Smith, Elizabeth Michelle Haase, Christopher M. Carr (Department of Law), Atlanta; Paul L. Howard Jr., Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder (Fulton County District Attorney's Office), Atlanta, for appellee.
    Case Number: S17A0949

    The evidence supported defendant's convictions for malice murder, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and defendant failed to prove his several ineffective assistance of counsel claims.

  • Spencer v. The State

    Publication Date: 2017-10-23
    Practice Area: Criminal Law | Evidence
    Industry:
    Court: Court of Appeals
    Judge: Justice Boggs
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Thomas James Thomas, Thomas Webb & Willis, Atlanta, for appellant.
    for defendant: John Andrew Pipkin III, William Barney Kennedy III, Meredith Chafin Florio (Henry County Solicitor General's Office), McDonough for appellee.
    Case Number: S16G1751

    The Court of Appeals erred in holding that the trial court properly admitted a police officer's testimony correlating the results of a Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test with a numeric blood alcohol content; accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals' decision affirming defendant's DUI-less safe conviction.