Tanner v. State

Dewayne David Tanner pleaded guilty in 2017 in Floyd County Superior Court to malice murder and other crimes for shooting and killing his wife, Stephanie Tanner, and non-fatally shooting his mother-in-law, Beverly Broach. He was sentenced to life without parole plus 25 years. Seven years later, in April 2024, Tanner filed a motion on his own behalf asking to withdraw his guilty pleas, arguing his plea lawyer had been ineffective and that his pleas were not truly knowing and voluntary. The trial court dismissed his motion, finding it had no power to even consider it because the request came far too late. Tanner appealed, claiming he had tried to withdraw his pleas by letter within 30 days, but the record contained no such letter. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with the trial court and affirmed, holding that once the court term in which he was sentenced ended, no court had jurisdiction to let him take back his pleas.

A trial court loses jurisdiction to allow withdrawal of a guilty plea once the term of court in which the defendant was sentenced has expired; because Tanner waited more than seven years to file his motion, long after that term ended, the trial court properly dismissed it as untimely.

The ruling reinforces a strict, well-established time limit in Georgia: defendants who plead guilty must move to withdraw their pleas before the court term ends, usually within days or weeks, or lose that option permanently, even if they later raise serious claims like ineffective counsel.

Affirmed

1. Georgia law holds that once the term of court in which a defendant was sentenced on a guilty plea has ended, the trial court no longer has jurisdiction, or legal authority, to allow that defendant to withdraw the plea.
2. Tanner entered his guilty pleas and was sentenced on April 24, 2017, during the March 2017 term of Floyd County Superior Court; that term ended when a new term began on May 1, 2017, under the statute setting Floyd County's court terms (OCGA § 15-6-3 (33)).
3. Tanner claimed he sent a letter within 30 days asking to withdraw his pleas, but the appellate record contained no such letter or response, and he did not even claim he sent it before the new term began on May 1, 2017.
4. Tanner's only timely filing was a 2018 motion to modify his sentence, which is legally different from a motion to withdraw a guilty plea; he did not actually file a motion to withdraw his pleas until April 29, 2024, more than seven years after sentencing.
5. Because the term of court had long since expired by the time Tanner filed his 2024 motion, the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider it and correctly dismissed it as untimely.

• guilty plea withdrawal
• murder conviction
• jurisdiction deadline
• Floyd County
• ineffective assistance claim