Morgan v. State

Deangelo Morgan was convicted in Bacon County of fatally shooting Sabron Mosby, a man he grew up with and considered a brother, after the two had a falling out over women. Morgan's co-indictees were tried separately and acquitted. At trial, prosecutors presented Morgan's own admissions that he wore a clown mask and fired the shots, plus DNA matching him found on a clown mask left at the scene. On appeal, Morgan argued the trial judge wrongly kept out evidence suggesting the shooting was drug related and evidence pointing to other possible shooters, and that his trial lawyer was constitutionally inadequate for not arguing harder for that evidence and for advising him not to testify. The Supreme Court of Georgia found that even if some evidence was wrongly excluded, the case against Morgan was too strong for it to matter, and that his lawyer's choices were reasonable strategic decisions. The court affirmed the conviction and sentence.

The court held that any error in excluding evidence about suspected drugs and other potential suspects was harmless given the strength of the evidence against Morgan, including his own admissions and DNA match, and that his trial counsel's advice not to testify was a reasonable strategic choice, not deficient performance.

The ruling shows Georgia courts will uphold convictions even when some defense evidence is excluded, so long as the case against the defendant is strong. It also reinforces that advising a client not to testify, when reasonably explained, will rarely support an ineffective-assistance claim.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the harmless-error test for evidentiary rulings, which asks whether it is highly probable that an error did not affect the verdict, and found that even assuming the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence that Mosby had suspected drugs on him, the strong evidence of Morgan's guilt made any such error harmless.
2. For evidence pointing to other possible shooters, the court applied the rule that testimony implicating another person is only admissible if it raises a reasonable inference of the defendant's innocence and directly connects that other person to the crime itself, not just mere suspicion.
3. Applying that rule, the court found that evidence Morgan's friend Batton was later jailed on an unrelated murder charge did not connect Batton to this shooting, so excluding it was not an abuse of discretion.
4. The court likewise found no direct connection between a firearm disposed of at co-indictee Jerrideau's direction, or burnt ammunition and drugs found near co-indictee Smith's home, and the actual shooting of Mosby, so excluding that evidence was proper.
5. On the ineffective-assistance claims, the court applied the two-part Strickland standard, requiring proof that counsel's performance was objectively unreasonable and that it likely changed the trial's outcome, and found Morgan failed to identify what better arguments counsel should have made regarding the drug evidence.
6. The court found trial counsel's advice not to testify was a reasonable strategic decision, since counsel had explained the pros and cons and was concerned about Morgan's credibility after his stated alibi witness contradicted his account, so the advice was not so unreasonable that no competent lawyer would have given it.

• murder conviction
• excluded evidence
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• clown mask DNA
• right to testify