--- title: Jones v. State collection: opinions id: S26A0151 cite_as: Jones v. State, S26A0151 (Ga. Oct. 8, 2025) canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0151 md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0151.md text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0151/text source_url: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10692696/jones-v-state/ date: 2025-10-08 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/2025.md previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S25A0446.md next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S25A0789.md index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md omitted: opinion extras omitted_chars: 1120 omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0151.md?full=1 docket: S26A0151 court: Supreme Court of Georgia case_type: criminal appeal disposition: Judgment vacated and case remanded vote: All the Justices concur word_count: 432 date_filed_source: courtlistener record_source: courtlistener legal_areas: - criminal law - civil procedure upstream_id: "10692696" summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5 --- # Jones v. State Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S26A0151, filed 2025-10-08. ## Opinion SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA Case No. S26A0151 October 8, 2025 The Honorable Supreme Court met pursuant to adjournment. The following order was passed: ROBIN JONES v. THE STATE. In April 2022, Robin Jones filed a motion for out-of-time appeal from the judgment of conviction entered on his guilty plea in 1986. The superior court dismissed Jones’s motion pursuant to Cook v. State, 313 Ga. 471 (2022). This Court then dismissed Jones’s appeal from that dismissal order as it did not present a cognizable basis for appeal. See Jones v. State, S22A1216 (Aug. 9, 2022). Since that time, the General Assembly enacted OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b), which became effective May 14, 2025. Under this statute, a defendant whose motion seeking an out-of-time appeal was dismissed under Cook has the right to move for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal until June 30, 2026.1 1 Specifically, this statute provides: In a criminal case, after a judgment of conviction, a defendant whose motion for new trial or notice of appeal was dismissed based upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Cook v. State, 313 Ga. 471 (2022), and its progeny, shall have the right to move for leave to file an out-of-time motion for new trial or notice of appeal until June 30, 2026, pursuant to subsection (a) of this Code section. Any filing made pursuant to this subsection shall not be subject to the 100-day time limitation in subsection (a) of this Code section. On July 21, 2025, Jones filed a new motion for leave to file an out-of-time appeal. The superior court dismissed Jones’s motion, again citing Cook rather than analyzing the motion under the framework laid out in OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b). Jones timely appealed from the superior court’s dismissal order, seeking remand for a hearing pursuant to OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b). The State agrees that a remand is appropriate and has now moved to vacate the superior court’s order and remand this case for further proceedings consistent with OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b). Because the superior court failed to conduct the proper analysis of Jones’s motion, we hereby GRANT the motion to vacate the superior court’s dismissal order and remand this case to the superior court for reconsideration of Jones’s motion in light of OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b). Judgment vacated and case remanded. 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 2 ## 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 Robin Jones's decades-old guilty plea case back to a Cochran County-area superior court, ruling the lower court wrongly relied on old case law instead of a new state statute governing out-of-time appeals. ### Plain-language summary Robin Jones pleaded guilty in 1986 and years later tried to get an out-of-time appeal, meaning permission to appeal even though the normal deadline had long passed. A superior court dismissed his motion under a 2022 Supreme Court of Georgia case called Cook v. State, and this court initially dismissed his appeal of that ruling because it did not present a valid basis for appeal. After that, the Georgia General Assembly passed a new law, OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b), giving people whose motions were dismissed under Cook a fresh right to seek an out-of-time appeal until June 30, 2026. Jones filed a new motion citing this law, but the superior court again dismissed it by relying on Cook instead of analyzing it under the new statute. The State agreed the case should go back, and the Supreme Court of Georgia agreed, vacating the dismissal and sending the case back for proper review under the new law. ### Holding, as summarized The superior court erred by dismissing Jones's motion under the old Cook framework instead of analyzing it under the newly enacted OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b), which gives defendants whose Cook-based motions were dismissed a right to seek an out-of-time appeal until June 30, 2026. ### Disposition Judgment vacated and case remanded. All the Justices concur. ### Why it matters This ruling clears the way for Jones, and signals to Georgia trial courts generally, that motions covered by the new statute must be evaluated under its specific framework rather than dismissed automatically under the older Cook precedent, affecting others with similar old convictions. > The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions, and the CourtListener opinion records (1,120 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0151.md?full=1