State v. Goff

Todd Goff was convicted of malice murder for killing his girlfriend, Tiffany Nicole Salter, after police found her strangled body near a freshly dug hole behind their home. Goff did not testify at trial, and his lawyer chose not to introduce his booking photos showing a scratch on his neck, and did not seek a mistrial after the jury briefly heard that Goff was on probation. After he was convicted, Goff argued his trial lawyer had been constitutionally ineffective in all three respects, and a Richmond County Superior Court judge agreed, granting him a new trial. The State appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, arguing the trial lawyer's choices were reasonable strategic decisions, not mistakes. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with the State on all three points, holding that Goff had not shown his lawyer's decisions were so unreasonable that no competent lawyer would have made them. It reversed the grant of a new trial, leaving Goff's murder conviction and life sentence in place.

A trial lawyer's advice not to testify, decision not to seek a mistrial over a brief probation reference, and choice not to introduce booking photos were all reasonable strategic decisions, not deficient performance, because none was so patently unreasonable that no competent attorney would have made the same choice.

The decision reaffirms that Georgia trial judges cannot grant new trials just because a defense lawyer made a risky strategic call that looks questionable in hindsight; the choice must be one no competent lawyer would have made, which affects how defendants and courts evaluate ineffective-assistance claims statewide.

Reversed

1. The court applied the two-part test from Strickland v. Washington, under which a defendant must show both that his lawyer's performance was deficient and that the deficiency harmed his defense, and noted that failure on either part ends the inquiry.
2. On the decision not to testify, the court explained that such choices are tactical and belong to the defendant after consulting counsel, and are only deficient if so patently unreasonable that no competent lawyer would have advised the same; here counsel reasonably feared damaging cross-examination given Goff's prior inconsistent statements to police.
3. The court found Goff's proposed testimony risky because it would have exposed him to cross-examination about his earlier claim that his neck scratches were several days old and that no physical fight occurred, undercutting the very provocation defense he wanted to support.
4. On the probation reference, the court held that a fleeting, nonspecific mention that Goff had visited a probation officer, without explanation of why he was on probation, did not make counsel's decision to forgo a mistrial motion objectively unreasonable, especially since counsel believed the trial was otherwise going well for the defense.
5. On the booking photos, the court reasoned that because introducing the photos would have required Goff's own testimony to explain their significance, and Goff has not shown his decision not to testify was itself the product of deficient advice, counsel's choice not to introduce the photos was not deficient either.

• ineffective assistance of counsel
• murder conviction
• new trial
• booking photos
• probation reference