--- title: Woods v. State collection: opinions id: S21A0115 cite_as: Woods v. State, 310 Ga. 358 (2020) canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0115 md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0115.md text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0115/text source_url: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10367318/woods-v-state/ date: 2020-11-02 status: published corpus_version: opinions-2026-09-14 license: Public record of the Supreme Court of Georgia, via CourtListener and the court's own website; see about.md publisher: Georgia Commons, an independent project of Georgia Civic Data. Not the State of Georgia. Not legal advice. up: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/2020.md previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S20A1019.md next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S20A0820.md index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md omitted: opinion extras omitted_chars: 1951 omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0115.md?full=1 docket: S21A0115 citation: 310 Ga. 358 court: Supreme Court of Georgia case_type: criminal appeal disposition: Transferred to the Court of Appeals of Georgia vote: All the Justices concur word_count: 545 date_filed_source: courtlistener citations: - 850 S.E.2d 735 record_source: courtlistener legal_areas: - constitutional law - criminal law - civil procedure upstream_id: "10367318" summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5 --- # Woods v. State Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S21A0115, filed 2020-11-02, 310 Ga. 358. ## Opinion 310 Ga. 358 FINAL COPY S21A0115. WOODS v. THE STATE. Order of the Court. John Thomas Woods was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol (less safe), failure to maintain lane, and driving too fast for conditions, and he appeals, seeking to invoke this Court’s jurisdiction over constitutional questions on the ground that the trial court rejected his claim that his right to equal protection was violated by application in his case of the lower standard for admitting expert witness testimony in criminal cases, see OCGA § 24-7-707, as opposed to the more stringent standard applied in civil cases, see OCGA § 24-7-702. However, this Court has previously rejected similar equal protection challenges, see Mason v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 283 Ga. 271 (658 SE2d 603) (2008); Mitchell v. State, 301 Ga. 563, 571-572 (4) (802 SE2d 217) (2017), disapproved in part on other grounds in State v. Turnquest, 305 Ga. 758, 775 n.15 (827 SE2d 865) (2019), and appellant’s argument herein seeks merely to challenge the correctness of those decisions. Because this Court lacks jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to laws previously held to be constitutional against the same attack, see Zarate-Martinez v. Echemendia, 299 Ga. 301, 304 (788 SE2d 405) (2016), and because challenges to the correctness of this Court’s decisions do not fall within the scope of this Court’s subject matter jurisdiction, see generally Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Par. II and III; OCGA § 15-3-3.1, appellant’s equal protection argument fails to invoke this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. Should appellant be dissatisfied with the decision of the Court of Appeals on this issue, however, he will have the opportunity to seek review via certiorari. In addition, the remainder of the arguments that appellant makes on appeal require the mere application of well settled constitutional principles to the facts of his case. Therefore, those arguments also provide no anchor for this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. City of Decatur v. DeKalb County, 284 Ga. 434, 436 (668 SE2d 247) (2008) (the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over cases “that involve the application, in a general sense, of unquestioned and unambiguous provisions of the Constitution to a given state of facts,” quoting Pollard v. State, 229 Ga. 698 (194 SE2d 107) (1972)). For all of the reasons stated above, this Court transfers this appeal to the Court of Appeals. All the Justices concur. NAHMIAS, Presiding Justice, concurring. I agree that this appeal should be transferred to the Court of Appeals at this point, but if that court affirms Woods’s convictions, I would be inclined to grant a petition for certiorari asking this Court to reconsider its equal protection holding in Mason v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 283 Ga. 271, 273-275 (658 SE2d 603) (2008), as summarily extended to claims by criminal defendants in Mitchell v. State, 301 Ga. 563, 571-572 (802 SE2d 217) (2017). I am authorized to state that Justice Blackwell and Justice Peterson join in this concurrence. Ordered November 2, 2020. Jurisdiction. Paulding Superior Court. Before Judge Lyles. Keegan C. Gary, Hunter J. Rodgers, for appellant. Dick Donovan, District Attorney, Anthony B. Williams, Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Mark A. Loudon-Brown, amicus curiae. ## Summaries written by Georgia Commons The following was written by claude-sonnet-5 from the opinion above and is not part of the court's opinion. Quote the opinion, not the summary. The Supreme Court of Georgia sent a DUI defendant's appeal to the Court of Appeals of Georgia, ruling it had no jurisdiction over his equal protection challenge because the court had already rejected similar arguments before. ### Plain-language summary John Thomas Woods was convicted in Paulding County of driving under the influence, failing to maintain his lane, and driving too fast for conditions. On appeal, he argued that Georgia's rules on expert witness testimony treat criminal defendants unfairly compared to parties in civil cases, claiming this violated his right to equal protection under the law. The Supreme Court of Georgia explained that it had already turned down this same kind of equal protection argument in earlier cases, so Woods was really just asking the court to reconsider whether those earlier rulings were correct, something outside its jurisdiction over constitutional questions. His other arguments, the court said, simply applied settled constitutional rules to his own facts and likewise did not raise the kind of new constitutional question needed to keep the case in the Supreme Court. As a result, the court sent the whole appeal to the Court of Appeals of Georgia to decide. ### Holding, as summarized The Supreme Court of Georgia held that it lacks jurisdiction over constitutional challenges that merely ask the court to revisit legal questions it has already decided against the same argument, and that applying settled constitutional principles to particular facts does not invoke the court's constitutional jurisdiction; the appeal was transferred to the Court of Appeals of Georgia. ### Disposition Transferred to the Court of Appeals of Georgia. All the Justices concur. ### Why it matters The decision clarifies that Georgia defendants cannot keep an appeal in the Supreme Court simply by repeating equal protection arguments the court has already rejected. It also signals that a future certiorari petition on this expert-testimony standard could still be considered if the Court of Appeals rules against Woods. > The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions, and the CourtListener opinion records (1,951 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0115.md?full=1