DELOACH v. THE STATE (And Vice Versa)

A Chatham County jury convicted Arheem DeLoach of murdering both Rashad Biggins and Jamell Law in 2015, finding the two killings were connected revenge shootings tied together by forensic evidence and a jailhouse informant. After trial, the judge partly granted DeLoach a new trial, allowing the Law conviction to stand but ordering a new trial on the Biggins charges because a key witness, Trishon Collins, had falsely denied getting a plea deal for his cooperation. DeLoach appealed the Law conviction, arguing his trial lawyer should have asked to separate the two murder cases and should have objected to a comment the judge made about appeals. The State cross-appealed the new trial order on the Biggins charges. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed DeLoach's lawyer made reasonable strategic choices, so it upheld the Law conviction. But it found the false testimony about Collins' plea deal was not important enough to have changed the jury's verdict, so it reversed the new trial order and let the Biggins conviction stand too.

Trial counsel's decisions not to seek severance of the two murder charges and not to object to the judge's brief mention of appellate review were reasonable strategy, not deficient performance, so the Law conviction stands. The false testimony about the informant's plea deal, though improperly left uncorrected, was not material because the witness was already thoroughly discredited, so the new trial order on the Biggins charges is reversed.

The ruling means both of DeLoach's murder convictions remain intact rather than facing a retrial on one of them. It also reinforces how far trial lawyers' strategic choices are protected from second-guessing and clarifies how courts weigh false testimony about informant deals.

Affirmed in part and reversed in part

1. To win a claim that his trial lawyer was constitutionally ineffective, DeLoach had to show both that the lawyer's performance was deficient and that it likely changed the outcome, under the Strickland test used in criminal cases nationwide.
2. The court found counsel's decision not to seek separate trials for the Biggins and Law murders was a reasonable strategic call, since separating the cases risked giving prosecutors time to strengthen their case and other-acts evidence might still have come in as part of the connected story.
3. The court found the trial judge's brief remark that she would 'get reversed probably' if she failed to properly read jury instructions did not amount to an improper comment on DeLoach's guilt under Georgia's rule against judges expressing opinions on guilt (O.C.G.A. § 17-8-57), so counsel was not deficient for not objecting to it.
4. On the cross-appeal, the court applied the Giglio rule, which bars prosecutors from knowingly letting false testimony stand uncorrected, and found the State should have corrected the witness's false denial that he had a plea deal.
5. The court concluded the false denial was not material because the witness, Trishon Collins, had already been thoroughly discredited at trial through his admitted drug use, inconsistent statements, and criminal record, so the additional falsehood was unlikely to have changed the jury's assessment of his credibility or the verdict.

• murder conviction
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• new trial
• witness credibility
• prosecutorial misconduct