Williams v. State

Santiago James Williams was convicted by a Chatham County jury of murdering Andrew Steven Coleman and Martial Washington during a drug deal that turned into a robbery and shooting. A key witness, Gabriel Gulley, testified against Williams at trial and then gave a video deposition the week after trial so he would not have to travel again for the trials of Williams's co-defendants. Williams argued he deserved a new trial because Gulley's deposition mentioned spending time with two other people after the murders, details Gulley had not mentioned at trial. Williams claimed this was newly discovered evidence. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, finding Williams could have asked Gulley the same questions during cross-examination at trial but did not, and that the minor differences would only affect Gulley's credibility rather than likely change the verdict. The convictions were affirmed.

A defendant is not entitled to a new trial based on newly discovered evidence when the failure to uncover that evidence sooner resulted from his own lack of due diligence, such as not cross-examining a witness at trial, and when the evidence would only impeach the witness's credibility without likely producing a different verdict.

The ruling reinforces that defendants cannot rely on new-trial motions to fix gaps left by their own failure to fully cross-examine witnesses at trial, and that minor inconsistencies in later testimony rarely justify reopening a murder conviction in Georgia.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the six-part test for newly discovered evidence under Georgia law (O.C.G.A. § 5-5-23), which requires showing, among other things, that the evidence was unknown at trial despite due diligence, that it is not merely impeaching, and that it would probably change the verdict.
2. The court found Williams lacked due diligence because the supposedly new information from the witness's post-trial deposition, about spending time with two other people after the murders, could have been elicited through the same open-ended questioning at trial during cross-examination, which Williams's counsel did not pursue.
3. The court concluded the differences between the witness's trial testimony and deposition testimony were minor and would only serve to impeach, or attack the credibility of, the witness rather than establish new substantive facts.
4. Because the evidence would only impeach the witness and Williams failed to show due diligence, the court held he did not meet the legal standard requiring the evidence be so material it would probably produce a different verdict.
5. Applying the abuse-of-discretion standard, which asks only whether the trial court's decision fell within a reasonable range of choices, the court found no error in the trial court's denial of the motion for new trial.

• murder conviction
• newly discovered evidence
• witness credibility
• Chatham County