Kelly v. State

Jeremiah Kelly was convicted of felony murder and other crimes and later argued through new appellate counsel that his trial lawyer had been ineffective. A superior court judge agreed and granted Kelly a new trial, but gave the State 30 days to ask for a rehearing. The State's rehearing request came within those 30 days, but only after the court term in which the new-trial order was issued had already ended. The judge nevertheless reopened the matter and later denied Kelly's motion for new trial. Kelly appealed, arguing the judge no longer had power to reconsider his own earlier ruling. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed: in criminal cases, a trial court's authority to revisit its own rulings ends with the term of court, and language in an order purporting to extend that deadline does not change the rule. The court also rejected the State's argument that the original new-trial order was unfair, holding the State has no due process rights of its own in this context.

A trial court in a criminal case loses its inherent power to revise, revoke, or vacate its own judgment once the term of court in which the judgment was entered has ended, unless a motion to reconsider was filed within that same term; because the State's rehearing request came after the term ended, the trial court's later order denying Kelly's motion for new trial was a nullity, and the State has no due process right to challenge the original order granting a new trial.

The ruling reinforces a strict deadline on when Georgia trial judges can revisit their own criminal rulings, protecting defendants once a favorable order is entered. It also confirms prosecutors cannot rely on 'due process' arguments to undo rulings they missed challenging in time.

Judgment vacated and case remanded with direction

1. Georgia trial courts generally have inherent power to revise, correct, or vacate their own judgments only during the same term of court in which the judgment was entered, unless a motion to reconsider is filed within that term; in criminal cases, unlike civil cases, this power ends strictly at the term's close.
2. The trial court's October 26, 2021 order granting Kelly a new trial invited the State to request a rehearing within 30 days, but that language could not extend the court's authority beyond the term of court, which ended before the State's November 23, 2021 rehearing request.
3. Because the State's rehearing request was filed after the term of court had expired, the trial court had no jurisdiction to reconsider its own new-trial order, making the later order denying Kelly's motion for new trial a legal nullity that must be vacated.
4. The State argued the original order granting a new trial was itself unfair and should be voided, framing this as a due process violation, but the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect individual persons from government action and do not give the government (the State) its own due process rights against a defendant.
5. Because the State has no due process right that could have been violated, its arguments about the fairness of the process leading to the new-trial order failed, leaving that original order granting Kelly a new trial in effect.

• motion for new trial
• term of court jurisdiction
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• due process
• felony murder conviction