State v. Islam

Police searched Md Nazmul Islam's business and seized items including Delta-8 THC gummies, and prosecutors charged him with possessing a controlled substance. Islam asked the trial court to declare the search unlawful, return his property, and keep it out of evidence. The trial judge agreed the seizure was unlawful and ordered the property returned, but the order never explicitly said the evidence was excluded from trial. The State tried to appeal that ruling to the Court of Appeals of Georgia, relying on a law that lets the State appeal orders excluding illegally seized evidence. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal, reasoning the trial court's order only addressed returning the property, not excluding it as evidence. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, holding that Georgia's property-return statute automatically excludes evidence once such a motion is granted, regardless of whether the order says so in words, so the State's appeal was proper after all.

The court held that an order granting a motion under Georgia's property-return statute automatically excludes the seized property from evidence by operation of law, so such an order counts as one 'excluding evidence illegally seized' and the State may appeal it under OCGA § 5-7-1 (a) (4).

The ruling clarifies that prosecutors can appeal orders returning seized property even when the order doesn't explicitly mention excluding evidence, preserving the State's ability to challenge suppression rulings. It also confirms that once a judge grants such a motion, evidence is automatically barred from trial without further action.

Reversed and remanded for consideration of the merits

1. The court explained that the State's right to appeal in criminal cases is strictly limited to the categories listed in OCGA § 5-7-1, so courts lack jurisdiction over appeals that fall outside those categories.
2. The court examined Georgia's property-return statute (OCGA § 17-5-30), which lets a defendant ask for return of unlawfully seized property and states that if the motion is granted, the property 'shall be restored' and 'shall not be admissible in evidence' against the defendant.
3. Because the statute uses the mandatory word 'shall,' the court concluded that exclusion of the property from evidence happens automatically by operation of law whenever such a motion is granted, leaving the trial judge no discretion to rule otherwise.
4. The court rejected Islam's argument that the phrase 'unless otherwise subject to lawful detention' created a separate ground for ordering return without exclusion, explaining under the rule of the last antecedent that this qualifying phrase only affects whether property is restored, not whether it is excluded from evidence.
5. The court distinguished two prior Court of Appeals cases the lower court relied on, finding neither actually held that the State lacks a right to appeal an order like this one, and disapproved any reading of those cases suggesting the State can never appeal such orders.
6. Applying this reasoning, the court found that even though the trial judge's order never used the word 'exclude,' exclusion occurred automatically once the judge found the seizure unlawful and granted Islam's motion, making the order appealable by the State.

• seized evidence
• Delta-8 THC gummies
• State's right to appeal
• search warrant
• evidence exclusion