Garrison v. State

Misty Michelle Garrison was charged with DUI and related misdemeanors after crashing her boyfriend's truck into a utility pole in 2018. The State amended its charges more than two years after the crash, relying on COVID-19 judicial emergency orders issued by the Chief Justice to argue the deadline for filing charges (the statute of limitations) had been extended. Garrison argued the State had to specifically plead and prove those emergency orders applied, just as it must for other legal exceptions that pause deadlines. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, holding that because the emergency orders applied automatically to every case once issued, without depending on facts unique to Garrison's case, the State did not need to plead or prove them. But the court also found that the trial judge and Court of Appeals used an outdated legal standard to decide whether the trooper's eye-test (HGN) testimony about her impairment was admissible. Because that error might have affected the verdict, the court sent the case back for the trial court to reconsider under the correct standard.

The State need not allege or prove that COVID-19 judicial emergency orders extended the statute of limitations because those orders take effect automatically in every case by operation of law, unlike fact-based tolling exceptions. However, the trial court applied the outdated Harper standard rather than the current Daubert-based standard under OCGA § 24-7-702 to admit HGN test testimony, and this error was not harmless.

The ruling means prosecutors statewide handling pandemic-era cases do not need to specially plead COVID emergency orders to justify late filings. It also clarifies that a newer, stricter standard now governs expert-style evidence like HGN eye tests in criminal DUI trials, affecting how officers' testimony is scrutinized in future cases.

Judgment vacated and case remanded

1. The court distinguished two kinds of legal mechanisms that can extend a deadline for filing criminal charges: fact-based tolling exceptions (which pause the clock only when specific facts exist, like a victim's age or a defendant's absence from the state) and automatic extensions (which apply by operation of law, like when a case is dismissed and refiled within six months).
2. The court found that COVID-19 judicial emergency orders fit neither category cleanly, but reasoned that because such orders take effect identically in every case within their scope once properly issued, with no fact-specific trigger unique to a defendant, there was nothing for a defendant to factually dispute or defend against.
3. Because courts can simply take judicial notice that an emergency order existed and applied, the court concluded prosecutors do not need to plead or prove the order in the charging document, and a defendant who wants clarity can instead file a special demurrer or plea in bar to challenge the timing.
4. Turning to the HGN (eye-movement) test evidence, the court noted that a 2022 law adopted the Daubert standard, a federal-style test requiring courts to act as gatekeepers examining an expert's qualifications and the reliability of their methods, replacing the older, more lenient Harper standard for evaluating scientific evidence in criminal trials.
5. Because Garrison's trial occurred after the new standard took effect, but the trial court and Court of Appeals evaluated the trooper's HGN testimony under the old Harper standard, the court held this was legal error, and the record was too thin to say whether the testimony would have been admitted under the correct standard.
6. Reviewing the trial evidence in detail, the court found that proof of impairment was largely circumstantial and not overwhelming, and that the HGN test testimony was the strongest evidence of impairment, so the court could not say it was highly probable the error made no difference to the verdict, requiring the case to be sent back rather than simply affirmed.

• DUI case
• statute of limitations
• COVID-19 judicial emergency orders
• HGN field sobriety test
• Daubert standard