State v. Cullins

Deanthony Cullins was indicted for murder and other charges after a June 2022 shooting that killed Dy'Sheae Hall, which Cullins said was self-defense. During his trial, the prosecutor asked a detective questions that improperly commented on Cullins's silence and his decision to have a lawyer, and the defense asked for a mistrial, which the trial court granted. Cullins then argued that a second trial should be barred because the prosecutor had intentionally goaded the defense into asking for the mistrial, hoping for a better shot at conviction. The DeKalb County Superior Court agreed, finding the prosecutor's explanation for the questions unconvincing and pointing to how the trial had been going, the State's earlier request to delay the case, and the chance to fix problems with witnesses on retrial. The State appealed, arguing the trial judge got it wrong. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, holding that the trial court's factual findings were supported by the record and were not clearly wrong, so the case cannot be retried.

A retrial is barred under the Double Jeopardy Clause's narrow exception for prosecutorial goading, because the trial court's finding that the prosecutor intentionally provoked the mistrial to get a better chance at conviction was supported by the record and not clearly erroneous.

The ruling protects Cullins from a second murder trial and reinforces that Georgia prosecutors cannot use improper questioning to engineer a mistrial when a case is going poorly, giving trial judges strong authority to shut down retrials in such situations.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the rule that when a defendant asks for a mistrial because of prosecutorial misconduct, the State can normally retry the case, but a narrow exception bars retrial if the misconduct was intended to goad the defendant into seeking the mistrial.
2. Whether the prosecutor intended to goad the defense into a mistrial is a factual question that an appeals court will not overturn unless it is clearly wrong, and any evidence supporting the trial court's finding, even circumstantial, is enough to uphold it.
3. The court found that delays caused by Cullins were irrelevant to whether the prosecutor intentionally caused the mistrial, and that the State's own last-minute request for a continuance supported the trial court's finding the State was not ready for trial.
4. The court rejected the State's claim that the trial judge was biased for shortening a quoted exchange, since the trial court used an ellipsis and the omitted portion was about an unrelated topic (Cullins's brother).
5. The court found the trial judge was entitled to disbelieve the prosecutor's stated reason for the questions, that he was trying to show flight as evidence of guilt, especially since Cullins had turned himself in and the flight theory did not fit the facts.
6. The court agreed that the record supported the trial court's conclusion that a second trial would let the State fix weaknesses in its witnesses' testimony and retry to admit previously excluded other-acts evidence, so the goading finding was not clearly erroneous.

• double jeopardy
• mistrial
• murder charge
• prosecutorial misconduct
• plea in bar