Green v. State

Eric Green was convicted by a DeKalb County jury of malice murder and related gun crimes in the 2021 shooting death of Njeri Strickland. He was sentenced to life in prison plus additional years for firearm offenses. After trial, Green got new lawyers who filed a motion for new trial, but that motion never argued that his original trial lawyer had done a constitutionally inadequate job. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, Green's only argument was that his trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to object to certain testimony. But Georgia law requires defendants to raise ineffective assistance claims at the first real opportunity, once they have new lawyers who are not the trial attorney being criticized. Because Green never made that argument in his motion for new trial, at the hearing on that motion, or in the trial court's ruling, the Supreme Court of Georgia held he had forfeited the right to raise it now, and affirmed his conviction.

A defendant forfeits a claim that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective if he fails to raise that claim at the earliest practicable moment, meaning once represented by new counsel in the motion for new trial proceedings, including any amendments and the hearing itself.

The decision reinforces a strict timing rule for Georgia criminal defendants: claims that a trial lawyer performed poorly must be raised as soon as new counsel takes over, or they are lost for good. Defense attorneys handling motions for new trial must actively screen for and raise such claims early.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the rule that a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, meaning a claim that the lawyer who handled the trial failed to meet minimum constitutional standards, must be raised at the earliest practicable moment once the defendant has new counsel.
2. For someone in Green's position, that earliest moment was during the motion for new trial stage, after his appellate lawyers took over from his trial lawyer.
3. The court found that Green never raised the ineffective assistance claim in his original or amended motion for new trial, never raised it at the hearing on that motion, and the trial court's order denying the motion did not address any such claim.
4. Because none of those opportunities were used to raise the claim, the court concluded Green forfeited it, meaning he lost the right to have it considered on appeal, relying on its recent decisions in Allen v. State and Watkins v. State applying the same forfeiture rule.

• malice murder conviction
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• forfeited claim
• DeKalb County