--- title: Brandon v. State collection: opinions id: S21A0269 cite_as: Brandon v. State, 311 Ga. 258 (2021) canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0269 md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0269.md text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0269/text source_url: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10367838/brandon-v-state/ date: 2021-04-05 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/2021.md previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0296.md next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0121.md index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md omitted: opinion extras omitted_chars: 1457 omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0269.md?full=1 docket: S21A0269 citation: 311 Ga. 258 court: Supreme Court of Georgia case_type: criminal appeal authoring_justice: Peterson disposition: Affirmed vote: All the Justices concur word_count: 561 date_filed_source: courtlistener citations: - 857 S.E.2d 229 record_source: courtlistener legal_areas: - criminal law - criminal procedure upstream_id: "10367838" summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5 --- # Brandon v. State Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S21A0269, filed 2021-04-05, 311 Ga. 258. ## Opinion 311 Ga. 258 FINAL COPY S21A0269. BRANDON v. THE STATE. PETERSON, Justice. Eric Brandon admitted shooting and killing his stepson, Alexander Koser, and the evidence showed that Koser was shot several times at close range. Brandon was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the killing.1 On appeal, Brandon argues only that the trial court erred in prohibiting him from asking the jury venire whether anyone believed that a person 1 The crimes occurred on February 12, 2012. In May 2012, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Brandon for malice murder, felony murder predicated on aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. At a jury trial in December 2013, Brandon was found guilty on all counts of the indictment; the jury specified on the verdict form that it found Brandon not guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of the murder charges. The trial court sentenced Brandon to life in prison for malice murder and a five-year consecutive term for the firearms charge; the remaining counts were vacated by operation of law or merged for sentencing purposes. Brandon timely filed a motion for new trial, which he later amended through new counsel in August 2016 and November 2019. On January 14, 2020, the trial court denied Brandon’s motion for new trial. Brandon timely filed a notice of appeal, and his case was docketed to this Court’s term beginning in December 2020 and submitted for a decision on the briefs. who had been arrested must be guilty of a criminal offense. But Brandon did not object to the trial court’s sua sponte ruling that he now seeks to appeal, which forecloses his claim. For more than 150 years, we have held that defendants must lodge contemporaneous objections to a trial court’s ruling in order to preserve a claim of error for ordinary appellate review. See, e.g., Goodtitle v. Roe, 20 Ga. 135, 140 (1856); Burtine v. State, 18 Ga. 534, 537 (1855). Brandon acknowledges this longstanding precedent, which has been applied to claims of error stemming from a trial court’s sua sponte limitation of voir dire questions. See, e.g., Hurt v. State, 298 Ga. 51, 59 (4) (779 SE2d 313) (2015). Brandon argues that we should overrule or relax that precedent, relying on provisions of the current Evidence Code and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. But none of the cited provisions apply to voir dire questions, and we decline to reconsider our precedent. And although certain unpreserved claims of error may be reviewed for plain error, Brandon’s claim is not one of those that is subject to such review. See Keller v. State, 308 Ga. 492, 497 (2) (a) (842 SE2d 22) (2020) (outlining four circumstances in which plain error review is allowed and explaining that this Court will not expand such review to other circumstances absent direction from the General Assembly). Because Brandon’s single claim of error has not been preserved, we affirm. Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur. Decided April 5, 2021. Murder. Fulton Superior Court. Before Judge Newkirk. Cara Clark, for appellant. Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey H. Rudder, Stephany J. Luttrell, Assistant District Attorneys; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Elizabeth Rosenwasser, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. ## 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 upheld a man's murder conviction for killing his stepson, ruling he could not challenge a jury-selection restriction because his lawyer never objected to it at trial. ### Plain-language summary Eric Brandon admitted shooting and killing his stepson, Alexander Koser, firing several shots at close range. A Fulton County jury convicted him of malice murder and related crimes, and the trial judge sentenced him to life in prison plus five years for the firearm charge. On appeal, Brandon argued only that the trial judge was wrong to stop him from asking prospective jurors whether they believed anyone who had been arrested must be guilty of a crime. The problem was that Brandon's lawyer never objected when the judge made that ruling during jury selection. Georgia law has long required a lawyer to object at the time to preserve an issue for a normal appeal, and Brandon asked the court to abandon that rule, citing evidence and federal procedure rules that did not actually apply to jury-selection questions. The court declined to change the rule and found no exception letting it review the issue anyway, so it upheld the conviction. ### Holding, as summarized A claim that a trial court improperly limited voir dire questioning is not preserved for ordinary appellate review unless the defendant lodged a contemporaneous objection, and such a claim does not fall within the limited categories of unpreserved errors reviewable for plain error. ### Disposition Affirmed. All the Justices concur. ### Why it matters The decision reinforces that Georgia defendants and their lawyers must object immediately to a judge's rulings, including limits placed on jury-selection questions, or lose the right to challenge them later on appeal, even in serious cases like this murder conviction. > The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions, and the CourtListener opinion records (1,457 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0269.md?full=1