Blash v. State

Demarcus Blash and three friends planned to rob a couple, Jain and Wendell Williams, after learning the couple kept guns and money at home. During the robbery, members of the group shot and killed both victims, and Blash himself fired the fatal shot that killed Wendell. A Dodge County jury convicted Blash of murder and several other crimes, and while awaiting trial he made recorded jail phone calls trying to influence witnesses against him. On appeal, Blash argued the evidence was too weak to convict him, that his jail calls and expert testimony about gang slang should not have been allowed, and that the judge sentenced him unfairly and his lawyer should have objected. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected all of these arguments and upheld his convictions and most of his sentence, but it fixed two sentencing errors on its own: sentences for burglary and one theft charge should have merged into other convictions and could not stand separately.

The evidence was constitutionally sufficient to convict Blash as a party to the crimes, the jail call recordings and gang-language expert testimony were properly admitted, and his sentences were lawful and not the product of ineffective counsel, except that two sentences (for burglary and one theft count) had to be vacated because those crimes should have merged into other convictions.

The ruling confirms that Georgia inmates' recorded jail phone calls remain fair game as trial evidence, reinforces that appellate courts will not second-guess a trial judge's refusal to grant a new trial on general fairness grounds, and shows the court will fix merger sentencing mistakes even when no one raises them.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part

1. The court applied the standard sufficiency-of-evidence test, which asks whether a rational jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and found that testimony and recorded statements from Blash's co-defendants placed him at the scene, armed, and participating in the robbery and killings, making him a 'party to the crime' under Georgia law even if he did not personally fire every shot or steal every item.
2. The court held that Blash's claim that the verdict went against the weight of the evidence (the 'general grounds' under OCGA §§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21) could not be reviewed on appeal, because Georgia law leaves that decision entirely to the trial judge, who had already found the verdict was not against the evidence.
3. Because Blash never objected at trial to how his jail calls were authenticated, the court reviewed that claim only for plain error, a narrow standard requiring a clear, obvious mistake that affected the outcome; testimony from a sheriff's employee about how the jail's recording system worked was enough to show the recordings reliably captured Blash's actual calls.
4. Applying Georgia's evidence rule that lets judges exclude evidence only when its unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its value (Rule 403, OCGA § 24-4-403), the court found the jail calls and the gang-language expert testimony highly relevant to show Blash's guilty conscience and intent, and Blash never explained what unfair prejudice resulted, so the trial judge did not abuse his discretion.
5. Because Blash's lawyer never objected to the judge's sentencing remarks, and those remarks did not fall into any of the narrow categories the legislature has approved for plain-error review, the court could not review the sentencing claim on ordinary appeal, and his sentences fell within the ranges Georgia statutes allow, so they were not void.
6. On its own initiative, the court found that two of Blash's convictions, first-degree burglary and theft of a firearm, required no proof beyond what was already needed for his home invasion and armed robbery convictions, so under Georgia's merger rules those sentences could not stand separately and had to be vacated.

• murder conviction
• home invasion
• jail phone calls
• gang expert testimony
• sentence merger