Nuckles v. State

Trevor Lamont Nuckles pleaded guilty in 2012 to felony murder and other charges in the shooting death of his girlfriend and was sentenced to life plus five years. After an unsuccessful habeas corpus petition (a challenge to the legality of his imprisonment) and a failed attempt to quash his indictment, Nuckles filed a new motion in 2025 asking the trial court to vacate his conviction as void, let him withdraw his guilty plea, appoint him a lawyer, and allow an out-of-time appeal. The trial court in Cherokee County denied all of this, and Nuckles appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The court found that a motion to vacate a conviction is not a recognized way to attack a guilty plea in Georgia, that his request to withdraw the plea came far too late because the court term in which he was sentenced had long since ended, that he gave no argument to support his request for a lawyer, and that he had not shown he qualified for an out-of-time appeal. The court affirmed the trial court's order.

A motion to vacate a conviction is not an authorized procedure in a Georgia criminal case, and a motion to withdraw a guilty plea filed after the term of court in which the sentence was imposed is untimely and beyond the trial court's jurisdiction; because Nuckles's filings came almost 13 years after his 2012 plea and he showed no basis for an out-of-time appeal or appointed counsel, the trial court properly denied relief.

The ruling reinforces strict time limits on challenging Georgia guilty pleas and convictions long after sentencing, meaning people who wait years to contest a plea generally cannot use motions to vacate or withdraw a plea, and must instead rely on habeas proceedings while those remain available.

Affirmed

1. The court explained that a motion to vacate or set aside a criminal conviction, regardless of what it is called, is not one of the recognized legal procedures for challenging a conviction in Georgia, so Nuckles's claim that his indictment was void gave the court nothing to review.
2. On the plea-withdrawal request, the court applied the rule that a defendant must ask to withdraw a guilty plea within the same court term as the sentence, or otherwise within 30 days or the current term under the amended version of Georgia's plea-withdrawal statute (OCGA § 17-7-93); after that window closes, only a habeas corpus proceeding can be used.
3. Because Nuckles filed his motion in 2025, about 13 years after his 2012 sentencing, the request to withdraw his plea came long after any applicable deadline, so the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider it on the merits.
4. On the request for appointed counsel, the court found Nuckles gave no argument, no record citations, and no identified error, so under longstanding Georgia precedent it is not the appellate court's job to build an appeal for him, and he failed to show any trial court error.
5. Regarding the out-of-time appeal request under OCGA § 5-6-39.1, the court found the statute's special extended deadline applies mainly to appeals dismissed based on the Cook v. State jurisdictional ruling, which did not happen here, and that Nuckles's filing fell well outside the standard 100-day window, so the trial court properly denied that request too.

• guilty plea withdrawal
• void conviction claim
• out-of-time appeal
• habeas corpus
• felony murder