--- title: Monroe v. State collection: opinions id: S22A0324 cite_as: Monroe v. State, 313 Ga. 458 (2022) canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S22A0324 md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S22A0324.md text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S22A0324/text source_url: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10679929/monroe-v-state/ date: 2022-03-08 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/2022.md previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21A0899.md next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S21Q0909.md index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md omitted: opinion extras omitted_chars: 1747 omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S22A0324.md?full=1 docket: S22A0324, S22I0114 citation: 313 Ga. 458 court: Supreme Court of Georgia case_type: criminal appeal authoring_justice: Per Curiam disposition: Appeal dismissed as improvidently granted vote: All the Justices concur word_count: 623 date_filed_source: courtlistener citations: - 870 S.E.2d 404 record_source: courtlistener legal_areas: - criminal law - civil procedure - evidence law upstream_id: "10679929" summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5 --- # Monroe v. State Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S22A0324, S22I0114, filed 2022-03-08, 313 Ga. 458. ## Opinion 313 Ga. 458 FINAL COPY S22A0324, S22I0114. MONROE v. THE STATE. ORDER OF THE COURT. Upon review of the full record and the briefs of the parties, this Court has determined that the application for interlocutory appeal in this case was improvidently granted. Accordingly, the order granting the application is vacated, the application is denied, and the appeal is dismissed. All the Justices concur. PETERSON, Justice, concurring. We granted Monroe’s application for interlocutory appeal to decide the significant question of whether a competency trial is a civil proceeding subject to the standard for admission of expert testimony set forth in OCGA § 24-7-702 (“Rule 702”), which incorporates into Georgia law for civil cases the holding of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (113 SCt 2786, 125 LE2d 469) (1993). See Rule 702 (a), (b), (f). This remains an important issue. Unfortunately, we have discovered a defect in this case that prevents us from reaching its merits here. “An appellant’s failure to attack alternative bases for a judgment results in the affirmance of that judgment.” Brown v. Fokes Props. 2002, Inc., 283 Ga. 231, 233 (2) (657 SE2d 820) (2008) (citation and punctuation omitted). Here, the trial court resolved Monroe’s claim that the Daubert standard should apply on both timeliness and substantive grounds. At trial, it ruled that Monroe was not entitled to seek a hearing to litigate the expert testimony under Rule 702 because he did not request one before trial as required by the trial court’s interpretation of the Rule. In its order denying Monroe’s motion for new trial, the trial court held that the Daubert standard does not apply to competency trials because such proceedings are “quasi-criminal” in nature. But the court also noted its earlier timeliness ruling and left untouched its prior reasoning, even though it also provided an alternative ground for its decision. Because Monroe has not challenged the timeliness rationale in his appeal, he has failed to attack an alternative basis for the judgment below. As such, this case does not properly present the merits of either issue, and we correctly dismiss it today as improvidently granted. See, e.g., Mendez v. Moats, 310 Ga. 114, 114- 15 (852 SE2d 816) (2020) (Nahmias, P. J., concurring) (agreeing with vacation of writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, despite important questions presented, due to procedural defects that prevented resolving them). This dismissal should not be understood as casting any doubt on the importance of the Daubert-related question. Indeed, although not at issue in this case and despite this Court’s holding to the contrary on at least one potential constitutional ground, serious questions exist as to whether the United States and Georgia Constitutions permit the admission of expert testimony in criminal cases that is deemed insufficiently reliable in civil cases. See, e.g., Woods v. State, 310 Ga. 358, 359 (850 SE2d 735) (2020) (Nahmias, P. J., concurring, joined by Blackwell and Peterson, JJ.) (expressing inclination in an appropriate case “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 Chief Justice Nahmias and Presiding Justice Boggs join in this concurrence. Ordered March 8, 2022. Application for interlocutory appeal. Camden Superior Court. Before Judge Harrison. Karin Kissiah, Michael A. Schwartz, for appellant. Keith Higgins, District Attorney, Robert German, Jr., Benjamin E. Gephardt, Assistant District Attorneys; 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, M. Chris Fabricant, amici 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 dismissed an appeal about whether Daubert-style expert-testimony rules apply to competency trials, ruling the case was not properly positioned for the court to decide that question. ### Plain-language summary Monroe sought to challenge, before his competency trial, whether expert testimony about his mental competency had to meet the reliability standard used in civil cases under Georgia's Rule 702, which follows the U.S. Supreme Court's Daubert decision. The trial court in Camden Superior Court ruled against him on two separate grounds: first, that he never asked for a hearing on the issue before trial as required, and second, that the Daubert standard does not apply to competency trials because they are considered quasi-criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court of Georgia had agreed to hear the case to decide the important underlying question, but on reviewing the full record it found that Monroe had only challenged the second ground on appeal, not the first timeliness ground. Because an unchallenged alternative basis for a ruling is enough to uphold it, the court concluded it could not reach the merits and dismissed the appeal as improvidently granted. ### Holding, as summarized The court held that because the defendant failed to challenge the trial court's independent timeliness ruling on appeal, that unchallenged ground alone supported the judgment below, so the case did not properly present the Daubert-competency question for decision and the appeal had to be dismissed. ### Disposition Appeal dismissed as improvidently granted. All the Justices concur. ### Why it matters The dismissal leaves unresolved whether courts must apply civil-style reliability screening to expert testimony in competency trials, a question that affects how judges and lawyers handle mental competency disputes in Georgia criminal cases going forward. > The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions, and the CourtListener opinion records (1,747 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S22A0324.md?full=1