State v. Downing

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

No. S26A0965

The State

v.

Camron Chase Downing

On Appeal from the Troup County Superior Court

No. 21-R-0436

Decided: September 92>202‘

PINSON, Justice.

Camron Chase Downing was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Keenan Leonard. 1 The trial court granted Downing’s motion for new trial after finding that the murder weapon, a .357 Magnum revolver, should have been suppressed under the “fruit of the poisonous

1 Leonard was killed on January 1, 2021. On June 16, 2021, a Troup County grand jury indicted Downing for malice murder (Count 1), felony mur- der predicated on aggravated assault (Count 2), aggravated assault (Count 3), and possession of a firearm during the commission of each of those three felo- nies (Counts 4–6). Downing was tried before a jury from November 14 to 17, 2023, and was found guilty of all counts. The trial court sentenced Downing to life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder and five years in prison for possession of a firearm during the commission of that crime, to be served consecutively; the remaining counts merged for sentencing or were va- cated by operation of law. Downing filed a timely motion for new trial through new counsel, which he later amended twice. The trial court held two eviden- tiary hearings on the motion for new trial, on October 9, 2024 and March 18, 2025, and it granted the motion on August 27, 2025. The State filed a timely notice of appeal. The appeal was docketed to the April 2026 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

tree” doctrine because the police were able to find it only after taking a statement from Downing without giving him Miranda 2 warnings. Separately, the trial court found that trial counsel gave ineffective assistance by failing to show that the police found the gun only because of Downing’s unwarned statement. The State now appeals, claiming that the trial court erred in both of those rulings. Those rulings were error. The “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine was not a proper basis for suppressing the murder weapon unless Downing’s statement to the police was not volun- tary, but the trial court made no finding on that question along the way to suppressing the murder weapon. And because the trial court did not make that finding about voluntariness, it was also premature for the court to find that Downing was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to show that police found the gun only because of Downing’s statement. So the trial court’s order is vacated and the case remanded for the court to make the necessary findings.

1. Background

(a) Evidence at Trial

The evidence at trial showed the following.

At 2:52 p.m. on January 1, 2021, Leonard got a phone call from his girlfriend as he was driving toward his home. The couple talked for a while, and then the girlfriend heard something that “sounded like firecrackers.” She remarked about the sound, but Leonard did not respond. In fact, he did not say anything else at all. The girlfriend knew something was wrong. She opened the front door of her home and saw Leonard’s car outside. A “reddish-

2 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966).

maroonish-looking SUV like car” was speeding away. The girl- friend hurried to Leonard’s car, where she found Leonard severely injured and slumped over to his right. The girlfriend grabbed Leonard’s face and asked him, “[B]abe, what happened?” Leonard took two deep breaths and then “stopped trying.” The girlfriend called 911.

The police arrived. Leonard was dead of multiple gunshot wounds, shot twice in the arm, once in the torso, and once in the head. Three projectiles recovered from his body were determined to have been fired from either a .357 Magnum revolver, a .38-cal- iber revolver, or a 9-millimeter handgun. No spent cartridge cas- ings were found at the scene, which an officer testified could mean that the shots were fired from a revolver, which does not eject casings. Police reviewed footage from nearby traffic cameras and tag readers to look for a red or maroon SUV. They saw one in the area at the time of the shooting that matched the description given by witnesses and traced the tag number to Downing’s mother, Beverly. At trial, the parties stipulated that Beverly owned a red Nissan Pathfinder, that all of her children and her ex-husband had access to it, and that on the day of the shooting, she did not know where it was. The Pathfinder was found four days later, parked on the side of a road a mile or two away from the home of Downing’s brother, Cole.

While investigating the Pathfinder, police connected it with an incident that had happened two days before the shooting. That evening, on December 30, 2020, at about 11:00 p.m., an of- ficer had seen the same Pathfinder parked by an abandoned church with the light on inside the car. Because there had been several thefts of catalytic converters in the area recently, includ- ing from church buses, the officer stopped to check it out. The of- ficer did not find anyone there. But the hood of the Pathfinder was warm, and on the other side of the church the officer found a backpack containing the keys to the Pathfinder, a .357 Magnum revolver, and a driver’s license belonging to Downing. The officer did not remove anything from the scene. He documented what he had found and then left.

Based on the information they had so far, police got a war- rant to search Beverly’s home for, among other things, a .357 Magnum revolver. Four days after the shooting, investigators ar- rived at Beverly’s home — where Downing was also staying — to execute the warrant. While the search was going on, someone in the home texted a photo of the search warrant to Cole, who lived elsewhere, along with the message, “[T]his is a mess.” Cole had in his possession a .357 Magnum revolver that belonged to Downing. When Cole saw the photo of the search warrant, he decided he did not want the gun on his property, so he took it to the home of a friend, Keith Shumake, who lived “maybe half-a-mile” away, “back in the woods.”

Later that same night, police arrived at Cole’s home, still looking for the gun. Cole initially denied knowing anything about it. But when police threatened to charge him with tampering with evidence, Cole admitted that he had moved the gun to Shumake’s home, and he led them there. Shumake then led officers into the woods and brought them to a “purple lady’s handbag lying on the ground.” Inside the bag was the missing .357 Magnum revolver.

Investigators soon turned up other connections between Downing and that gun. Nearly 11 months before the murder, in February 2020, Downing was found to have a .357 Magnum in his possession, housed in a brown leather holster, when he was the subject of a traffic stop. And in December 2020, Downing had an encounter with law enforcement in which he was seen wearing a leather holster on his right hip. Officers later confirmed that the gun from the traffic stop, the gun in the backpack at the church, and the gun found on Shumake’s property were all the same weapon. A GBI analyst compared Downing’s .357 Magnum against the three projectiles that were recovered from Leonard’s body. She testified that at least one of the projectiles had been fired from that gun, and that the other two projectiles could not be ruled out as having been fired from that gun.

(b) Proceedings Related to the Grant of a New Trial As noted above, the trial court granted Downing’s motion for a new trial on the basis that the murder weapon should have been suppressed. The record shows the following circumstances related to that issue.

Before trial, Downing moved to suppress an incriminating statement he had made to police when they questioned him at his mother’s home. At the hearing on the motion, the trial court viewed bodycam footage from one of the officers who had inter- viewed Downing, Detective Darrell Prichard. In the interview, Downing admitted to shooting Leonard, and also told officers that he had put the gun in a shed at the home of his brother, Cole. Downing argued at the suppression hearing that the entire inter- view should be suppressed because he was in custody at the time and had not been read his Miranda rights. He also said that his statement was “coerced.” Among other things, Downing argued that he had been afraid of the officers, at one point even telling them, “I don’t want you guys to body slam me.” Downing specified that the evidence to be suppressed should include “[n]ot only [Downing’s] statement about admitting his involvement in the shooting, but also his statement about the gun” and “all evidence gained from using the statement.” As to the gun, Downing argued that the police never would have found the gun but for his state- ment. The trial court ultimately granted the motion to suppress any statements that were made in the interview. (The State does not challenge this ruling on appeal.) But as to the gun, the court said it was reasonable to assume that the police would have “fol- lowed up” with Downing’s siblings regardless of his statement, and that the gun would eventually have been found. The court therefore ruled that the gun would be admissible.

After he was convicted, Downing moved for a new trial through new counsel. In the amended versions of the motion, Downing challenged the trial court’s basis for allowing the gun into evidence: its finding that the gun inevitably would have been discovered even without Downing’s un-Mirandized statement. Downing argued, as he had at the motion-to-suppress hearing, that the police would not inevitably have found the gun. This time, Downing supported that argument with citations to the bod- ycam footage from Detective Prichard’s interactions with Cole. That footage had not been shown at the motion-to-suppress hear- ing, and Downing argued that the new footage showed how De- tective Prichard used what Downing had revealed in his state- ment to pressure Cole to turn over the gun. Separately, Downing argued that trial counsel was ineffective for not introducing the bodycam footage from the Cole interaction at the motion-to-sup- press hearing. Downing suggested that he was prejudiced by counsel’s failure because the trial court would have suppressed the gun if it had seen the bodycam footage, although he did not explicitly tie that argument to the prejudice showing required for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.

At the motion-for-new-trial hearing, Detective Prichard testified about how police had found the gun. He said he had spo- ken to Cole twice before taking Downing’s statement, once on the phone and once in person, and that nothing from those discus- sions had indicated that the gun was on Cole’s property. But when he spoke to Cole for the third time, after getting Downing’s state- ment, he told Cole that Downing had already confessed to the shooting, that Downing had said he left the gun in the shed, that Cole could be charged with a serious offense if he had moved the gun, and that Cole would not be charged if he turned over the gun. Detective Prichard confirmed that Cole did not admit to moving the gun until after Detective Prichard recounted those parts of Downing’s statement. Detective Prichard’s bodycam footage, which was entered into evidence at the hearing, confirmed this testimony.

Also at the motion-for-new-trial hearing, Downing’s trial counsel testified that he possessed the bodycam footage of Cole at the motion-to-suppress hearing. He testified that it was a “mis- take” and an “oversight” not to introduce the footage at that time, because the footage would have countered the State’s argument that the gun inevitably would have been discovered. Counsel also testified that he thought the gun would not be admitted because “the interrogation was so wrong that the confession would be thrown out.”

The trial court granted the motion for new trial. The court found that the evidence, including the bodycam footage of Cole, showed that the information from Downing’s statement was “im- mediately and directly used to induce Cole to disclose the location of the gun.” The court further found that the State had not met its burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have found the gun even without the information obtained from Downing. So, the court ruled, the gun should have been sup- pressed as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” And in the alternative, the court ruled that trial counsel gave ineffective assistance by not introducing the bodycam footage at the motion-to-suppress hearing.

2. Analysis

The State contends on appeal that the trial court erred in granting a new trial on both of its stated grounds. When a trial court grants a new trial on “special grounds involving a question of law,” the court’s conclusion about that question of law is re- viewed de novo. See Flakes v. State, 323 Ga. 477, 480 (2026).

(a) The State contends that the trial court erred in granting a new trial on the basis that the .357 Magnum was admitted in error. We agree. It was error to conclude that the .357 Magnum should have been suppressed merely on the basis that the police would not have found it without Downing’s statement obtained in violation of Miranda.

A statement obtained from a person in police custody who has not been given the warnings required by Miranda generally is not admissible at trial. See Gonzalez v. State, 319 Ga. 787, 789 (2024). But physical evidence discovered because of such an un- warned statement must be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree only if the statement was actually coerced. The physical fruits of an unwarned but voluntary statement need not be sup- pressed under that doctrine. See Hayes v. State, 320 Ga. 505, 512– 13 (2024) (citing United States v. Patane, 542 US 630, 642–44 (2004)). 3 The trial court here, however, made no findings about

3 In Patane, a three-Justice plurality concluded that the physical fruits

whether Downing’s statement was voluntary before concluding that the gun should have been suppressed as fruit of the poison- ous tree. 4 Absent such a finding, it was error to conclude that the gun should have been suppressed. See id.

(b) The State also contends that the trial court erred in granting a new trial on the basis that Downing’s trial counsel gave constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to introduce the bodycam footage of Cole at the motion-for-new-trial hearing. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Downing had to show that his counsel rendered deficient performance that prejudiced Downing, meaning that it was reasonably likely to have affected the outcome of the trial. See Strickland v. Washing- ton, 466 US 668, 687 (1984); Washington v. State, 313 Ga. 771, 773 (2022). The trial court concluded that counsel performed de- ficiently by failing to support the motion to suppress with the bod- ycam footage of Cole: the footage showed that the police would not have found the gun without Downing’s un-Mirandized statement, and the motion could not succeed without that showing, so no rea- sonable lawyer would have failed to present it. (We express no opinion about that conclusion.) And the court found that counsel’s

of a suspect’s unwarned but voluntary statements need not be suppressed un- der Miranda. See Patane, 542 US at 634. Two more Justices agreed that non- testimonial physical fruits of unwarned statements need not be suppressed, but they concurred in the judgment because they found it unnecessary to de- cide certain points (not relevant here) the plurality had reached. See id. at 645 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment). In other words, a majority of the Court agreed that the physical fruits of a suspect’s unwarned but voluntary state- ments need not be suppressed under Miranda.

4 The trial court arguably found that the police used Downing’s state- ment to pressure Cole into disclosing the gun. But that finding of involuntari- ness (to the extent there was one) would not require suppression of the gun. Again, suppression was required only if Downing’s statement itself was not given voluntarily.

failure prejudiced Downing because “evidence regarding the gun was crucial in this trial and failure to have it suppressed could have led to a different outcome.”

But like the trial court’s fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree ruling, that conclusion on ineffective assistance is error absent a finding on whether Downing’s statement was voluntary. As explained above, if Downing’s statement was voluntary, then showing through the bodycam footage that the gun was discovered only because of Downing’s statement would not have led to suppres- sion of the gun at the motion-to-suppress hearing. See Hayes, 320 Ga. at 514. So the trial court’s conclusion that counsel’s failure to present the bodycam footage likely affected the outcome of the motion to suppress (and thus the outcome of trial) was at least premature. That conclusion could bear out only if Downing’s statement was coerced, such that the gun would be subject to sup- pression as fruit of the poisonous tree. See State v. Folsom, 285 Ga. 11, 14 (2009). In short, absent a finding on whether Downing’s statement was voluntary, the trial court’s conclusion that trial counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to present the bodycam footage was error.

(c) These errors require us to vacate the judgment granting a new trial and remand for further proceedings. The State asks us to conclude that Downing’s statement was voluntary and thus to reverse the trial court, but we are generally a court of review, see Simms v. State, 323 Ga. 874, 877 (2026), and we decline to make that finding in the first instance. Instead, on remand, the trial court should determine whether Downing’s statement to po- lice was voluntary as a matter of constitutional due process. See Quintanar v. State, 322 Ga. 61, 64–65 (2025) (setting out the framework for that analysis, under which the State bears the bur- den of demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that, under the totality of the circumstances, the statement in question was voluntary). After making that determination, the trial court should then address Downing’s claims under the proper legal frameworks.

Judgment vacated and case remanded with direction. All the Justices concur.