---
title: Davis v. Coleman, Warden
collection: opinions
id: S24H1293
cite_as: Davis v. Coleman, Warden, S24H1293 (Ga. Nov. 4, 2025)
canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S24H1293
md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S24H1293.md
text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S24H1293/text
source_url: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10730283/davis-v-coleman-warden/
date: 2025-11-04
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/2025.md
previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S25Y0795.md
next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S25A1259.md
index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md
omitted: opinion extras
omitted_chars: 1784
omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S24H1293.md?full=1
docket: S24H1293
court: Supreme Court of Georgia
case_type: habeas
disposition: Motion for reconsideration denied
vote: All the Justices concur
word_count: 788
date_filed_source: courtlistener
record_source: courtlistener
legal_areas:
  - habeas corpus
  - civil procedure
upstream_id: "10730283"
summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5
---

# Davis v. Coleman, Warden

Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S24H1293, filed 2025-11-04.

## Opinion

SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA

Case No. S24H1293

November 4, 2025

The Honorable Supreme Court met pursuant to adjournment.

The following order was passed:

HUNTER MASON DAVIS v. JEFF COLEMAN, WARDEN.

On September 30, 2025, this Court dismissed Hunter Mason Davis’s effort to appeal the June 11, 2024 order denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus because neither Davis’s notice of appeal nor his application for a certificate of probable cause to appeal was timely filed. See OCGA § 9-14-52(b), Fullwood v. Sivley, 271 Ga. 248, 250 (1999). Davis timely filed a motion for reconsideration arguing that this Court’s ruling must have been premised on the “final order in this case having been signed, and apparently accepted into the Ware County Clerk’s Office, on June 11, 2024.” He argues that, because habeas cases are civil in nature, OCGA § 15-6-11(b)(1) requires the final order to be filed electronically and OCGA § 15-6- 11(e) requires that the order be deemed as filed “as of the time of its receipt by the electronic filing service provider.” Davis then argues that, in his case, the electronic filing service provider, PeachCourt, did not receive the final order for filing until June 12, 2024, as evidenced by the fact that both the habeas court’s record index and the PeachCourt index show June 12, 2024 as the date of the final order denying him habeas relief. Noting that both his notice of appeal and his application for a certificate of probable cause to appeal were filed on July 12, 2024—the 30th day after June 12, 2024—he contends that this Court erred in dismissing his appeal.

But, there is nothing in § 15-6-11(b)(1) that requires a court’s orders to be filed electronically. Instead, that sub-section deals with pleadings and filings “filed by an attorney,” stating that: (1) after a date certain “all pleadings and any other document related thereto filed by an attorney to initiate a civil action or in a civil case in a superior court shall be filed” electronically and (2) “once a court has commenced mandatory electronic filings in civil cases, a clerk shall not accept, file, or docket any pleading or any other form of paper document related thereto from an attorney in a civil case” (emphasis supplied). Moreover, there is nothing in § 15-6-11, more generally, that requires the court or its clerk to electronically file a court’s orders, and Davis has cited to no other statute, local standing order, or caselaw that would require electronic filing.

Further, Davis’s argument that § 15-6-11(e) requires a court’s order be deemed as filed “as of the time of its receipt by the electronic filing service provider” fails. As an initial matter, although courts routinely make their orders available to the parties in electronic form, § 15-6-11(e) does not expressly address the date a court’s orders are deemed filed. Instead, it establishes the filing date for “[a]ny pleading or document filed electronically,” and, as noted above, there is nothing in § 15-6-11(b)(1) or in § 15-6-11 more broadly to mandate that a court’s orders must be “filed electronically.” In addition, the date the judge signed the order was not the basis for this Court’s timeliness decision. To obtain review of a final order in a habeas case, an unsuccessful habeas petitioner must file both an application for a certificate of probable cause to appeal in this Court and a notice of appeal in the habeas court “within 30 days from the entry of the order denying him relief.” § 9-14-52(b) (emphasis supplied). And, appeals in habeas corpus cases are governed by the Appellate Practice Act, see OCGA § 9-14-52(a) (“[a]ppeals in habeas corpus cases brought under this article shall be governed by Chapter 6 of Title 5”), which expressly provides that “[t]he filing with the clerk of a judgment, signed by the judge, constitutes the entry of a judgment.” OCGA § 5-6-31. Here, contrary to Davis’s argument that the judge’s signed final order was merely “accepted into” the clerk’s office on June 11, 2024, it actually was filed with the clerk’s office on that date, as is evidenced by the “filed stamp” prominently displayed on the last page of the order. For that reason, June 11, 2025 was the “entry of the judgment” being appealed in this case and Davis’s appellate documents were not timely filed. Because compliance with § 9-14-52(b) is jurisdictional, the Court denies Davis’s motion for reconsideration.

All the Justices concur.

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Clerk’s Office, Atlanta

I certify that the above is a true extract from the

minutes of the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk

## 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 denied a habeas petitioner's request to reconsider the dismissal of his appeal, holding that a trial court's order is entered when it is filed and stamped by the clerk, not when an electronic filing service receives it.

### Plain-language summary

Hunter Mason Davis lost his habeas corpus case, which is a legal challenge to the lawfulness of someone's imprisonment, in Ware County. He tried to appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, but the court dismissed his appeal in September 2025 because his notice of appeal and his request for permission to appeal were filed too late.
Davis asked the court to reconsider, arguing that the trial court's order was not officially filed until June 12, 2024, the date it reached the electronic filing system PeachCourt, rather than June 11, 2024, when the judge signed it and the clerk's office stamped it as filed. He claimed that a Georgia electronic filing statute set the later date as the official filing date, which would have made his July 12, 2024 filings timely.
The court disagreed, explaining that the electronic filing statute he relied on applies to filings by attorneys, not to a court's own orders, and that the order was actually filed with the clerk on June 11, 2024, as shown by the file stamp on the order itself. Because the deadline to appeal habeas rulings is jurisdictional, meaning the court has no power to hear a late appeal, it denied his motion.

### Holding, as summarized

The court held that Georgia's electronic filing statute (O.C.G.A. § 15-6-11) governs filings submitted by attorneys and does not require or govern when a court's own order is deemed filed; the order here was entered when it was signed and filed-stamped by the clerk on June 11, 2024, making Davis's later appellate filings untimely.

### Disposition

Motion for reconsideration denied. All the Justices concur.

### Why it matters

The ruling clarifies that habeas litigants in Georgia must count their 30-day appeal deadline from the date a judge's order is stamped filed by the clerk, not from when an electronic filing service logs it, which matters for anyone relying on electronic court records to calculate deadlines.

> The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions, and the CourtListener opinion records (1,784 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S24H1293.md?full=1