Lee v. State

Edward Lee, along with two co-defendants, was convicted by a Muscogee County jury of malice murder and numerous other crimes stemming from a series of robberies and burglaries in late 2011 and early 2012, including the fatal shooting of barbershop owner Charlie Artis. On appeal, Lee argued the trial judge should have granted a mistrial because a cooperating co-defendant mentioned Lee's prior incarceration during testimony, and because the State supposedly hid evidence about a fourth man who rode along to the barbershop. He also argued his trial lawyer should have objected to parts of the prosecutor's closing argument. The Supreme Court of Georgia found that Lee waited too long to ask for a mistrial on both grounds, moving only the next court day instead of right when the testimony came out, so those claims were waived. The court also found the prosecutor's closing argument comments were fair inferences from the evidence, not improper vouching, so Lee's lawyer was not ineffective for failing to object. The court affirmed the convictions.

A motion for mistrial must be made contemporaneously with the objectionable testimony or the issue is waived on appeal, and a defense lawyer's failure to object to a prosecutor's closing argument is not deficient performance when the argument stayed within the wide latitude prosecutors have to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence.

The ruling reinforces that Georgia defendants must object to problematic testimony immediately, not after a delay, or lose the right to raise it on appeal, and it confirms prosecutors have broad room to draw inferences during closing arguments without triggering ineffective-assistance claims.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the rule that a motion for mistrial, a request to stop the trial because of serious misconduct or error, must be made as soon as the party becomes aware of the problem, or the issue is waived (given up) for appeal.
2. Because Lee waited until the next trial day, after the weekend recess, to move for a mistrial over a witness's mention of his prior incarceration, that claim was waived rather than considered on the merits.
3. Similarly, Lee waited until the following day to move for a mistrial over the State's alleged failure to disclose information about a fourth man named Chris, a claim under Brady v. Maryland requiring prosecutors to turn over evidence favorable to the defense, so that claim was also waived.
4. On the ineffective assistance claim, the court applied the two-part Strickland test, which requires showing both that the lawyer's performance was unreasonably deficient and that the deficiency likely changed the trial's outcome.
5. The court found the prosecutor's closing argument comments, about witnesses having no reason to lie and about who may have supplied a getaway car or kept robbery proceeds, were reasonable inferences drawn from evidence already presented, which prosecutors are allowed wide latitude to make.
6. Because any objection to those comments would have been meritless, the lawyer's failure to object could not be deficient performance, and the trial lawyer's own hindsight admission that she should have objected did not change this objective analysis.

• murder conviction
• mistrial motion
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• closing argument
• Brady violation claim