State v. Heath

Kristine Heath caused a car crash at a stop sign that killed a passenger in her car and seriously injured five other people. A jury convicted her of vehicular homicide, several counts of serious injury by vehicle, and failing to stop at a stop sign. The Court of Appeals of Georgia later found that her trial lawyer should have filed a general demurrer, a legal challenge saying the felony charges in the indictment were so flawed they could not support a conviction, and that failing to do so was ineffective assistance of counsel that hurt her case. The State asked the Supreme Court of Georgia to review only one question: whether that failure actually harmed Heath's defense, given that she knew what she was accused of and the evidence at trial supported guilt. The court disagreed with the State, holding that because the felony charges were legally void, Heath could never have been convicted of them under that indictment, regardless of notice or trial evidence, so her lawyer's mistake did cause harm.

A defendant is prejudiced under Strickland v. Washington when trial counsel fails to raise a valid general demurrer to a void felony count, because the defendant could never have been lawfully convicted under that count regardless of notice of the charges or the strength of the trial evidence.

The decision clarifies that Georgia defense lawyers must catch fatally defective felony indictments even after a trial has started, and that failing to do so can void convictions no matter how strong the trial evidence was. It also overrules conflicting Court of Appeals precedent, giving trial and appellate lawyers clearer guidance.

Affirmed

1. The court explained that a general demurrer challenges whether an indictment's substance can support a conviction at all, unlike a special demurrer, which only challenges the form or specificity of the charges and must be raised before trial.
2. Because the felony counts here failed to properly allege the underlying predicate offenses, they were void in substance, meaning Heath could never have been lawfully convicted of them no matter how much notice she had or how strong the evidence was.
3. The court rejected the State's argument that notice of the charges cured the problem, since notice relates only to form (addressed by special demurrers), not to the fundamental validity of the charge (addressed by general demurrers).
4. The court also rejected the State's argument that Heath suffered no harm because the State could have re-indicted her and likely won a second trial, holding that the Strickland prejudice test asks only about the reasonable probability of a different result in the actual trial that occurred, not in a hypothetical future retrial.
5. Applying that rule, the court found there was no doubt the felony convictions would not have happened if trial counsel had raised the general demurrer, so Heath was prejudiced by her lawyer's deficient performance.
6. The court overruled Walker v. State and disapproved of related Court of Appeals cases that had held a defendant with sufficient notice of the charges cannot show prejudice from a lawyer's failure to raise a valid general demurrer.

• ineffective assistance of counsel
• vehicular homicide
• defective indictment
• general demurrer
• Strickland prejudice