---
title: Dryden v. State
collection: opinions
id: S26A0659
cite_as: Dryden v. State, S26A0659 (Ga. Aug. 13, 2026)
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source_url: https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/s26a0659.pdf
date: 2026-08-13
status: published
corpus_version: opinions-2026-09-14
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docket: S26A0659
court: Supreme Court of Georgia
case_type: criminal appeal
case_name_full: Diandre Dryden v. The State
authoring_justice: Bethel
disposition: Affirmed
vote: All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating
word_count: 1199
date_filed_source: courtlistener
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legal_areas:
  - criminal law
  - constitutional law
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---

# Dryden v. State

Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S26A0659, filed 2026-08-13.

## Opinion

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

No. S26A0659

Diandre Dryden

v.

The State

On Appeal from the Superior Court of Hall County

No. 2023CR156BCO

Decided: August 13, 2026

BETHEL, Justice.

Diandre Dryden was convicted of the malice murder of Latasha Smith. 1 On appeal, Dryden argues that the trial court violated his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. We disagree and affirm Dryden’s conviction.

1. The evidence at trial showed the following. At 2:39 a.m. on the day of the crimes, the Gainesville Police Department received a 911 call reporting a nude woman lying in the grass at

1 The crimes occurred on January 23, 2023. On February 15, 2023, a Hall County grand jury indicted Dryden for malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. After a jury trial in March 2024, Dryden was found guilty of all counts as charged in the indictment. The court imposed a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for malice murder, and the remaining counts merged or were vacated by operation of law.

Dryden filed a timely motion for a new trial on March 19, 2024, which was amended. The trial court denied the motion on June 10, 2025. Dryden then timely filed a notice of appeal to this Court, and his case was docketed to this Court’s April 2026 term and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

a local apartment complex. The caller self-identified as “Dwayne Green” and stated, “I see the lady walk out, lay down on the ground.” The caller described the woman as partially nude and noted that he was not close enough to tell if she was breathing. Responding law enforcement officers located Smith’s body near the apartment complex’s mailboxes. The temperature outside was around 30 degrees, and other than underwear around her ankles, Smith’s “ice cold” body was nude and blood was on the left side of her face. Law enforcement officers were unable to detect a pulse or other sign of life in Smith’s body. An autopsy showed that Smith died as a result of strangulation and blunt force head trauma. Dryden, who lived in the apartment complex, approached the responding officers and inquired about what was happening. Dryden provided a false first name, but officers determined that Dryden’s first name was Diandre and that he had an outstanding arrest warrant. Police then placed him under arrest. During a search of Dryden’s apartment, investigators located bloody clothing on which Smith’s DNA was found. Dryden’s DNA was found under the fingernails of Smith’s right hand. And investigators later confirmed that the 911 call originated from Smith’s cell phone, which was located on Dryden’s person at the time of his arrest. Location data placed Smith’s phone in Dryden’s apartment complex at the time the 911 call was made. 2

2. In his sole enumeration of error, Dryden argues that the

2 The testimony concerning the precision of the location data is unclear, as the witness stated both that a call could be placed to a “particular address” as well as a specific “apartment complex.” There was also testimony that the location data traced the call to Dryden’s specific unit in the apartment complex. Regardless, the testimony was clear that, at minimum, the 911 call was placed from Dryden’s apartment complex. And any inconsistency does not matter for purposes of Dryden’s sole enumeration of error, as explained below.

trial court violated his constitutional right to confront a witness against him when it admitted what Dryden characterizes as testimonial hearsay in the 911 call by “Dwayne Green,” who did not testify at trial and whom Dryden was unable to cross examine. At trial, Dryden objected to admission of the 911 call only on authentication grounds, so we review this claim for plain error only. See OCGA § 24-1-103(d); Grier v. State, 313 Ga. 236, 240 (2022) (applying plain-error review to Confrontation Clause claim raised for first time on appeal). That means Dryden must identify a legal error that was “not affirmatively waived”; was “clear and not open to reasonable dispute”; that “affected his substantial rights”; and that “seriously affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Grier, 313 Ga. at 240– 41. Dryden has not shown error, much less a clear and obvious one. A Confrontation Clause violation occurs only if the challenged statements are “both hearsay and testimonial.” Gines v. State, 324 Ga. 46, 71 (2026). See also Smith v. Arizona, 602 US 779, 800 (2024) (“To implicate the Confrontation Clause, a statement must be hearsay (‘for the truth’) and it must be testimonial—and those two issues are separate from each other.”). Of course, an out-of-court statement made by someone other than the witness being examined at trial is hearsay only when the statement is offered for the truth of the matter asserted. Gines, 324 Ga. at 71–72; OCGA § 24-8-801(c). So, a statement not offered for the truth of the matter asserted is not hearsay and does not implicate the Confrontation Clause. Gines, 324 Ga. at 72. See also Crawford v. Washington, 541 US 36, 59 n.9 (2004) (“The [Confrontation] Clause also does not bar the use of testimonial statements for purposes other than establishing the truth of the matter asserted.”).

Here, the 911 call was not admitted for the truth of the matter asserted because the State did not offer the call to prove that the caller’s account was factually accurate. Instead, the State offered the call as evidence of Dryden’s alleged effort to conceal his crime. The State expressly argued that Dryden was the 911 caller — the call was placed from Dryden’s apartment complex and made from Smith’s phone, which was found on Dryden’s person when police arrested him — and that he alerted police to Smith’s body because he “wanted to get in front of it.” In short, the State contended that the words spoken by the caller were untrue. And because the call was not introduced for the purpose of establishing the truth of the matter asserted, it is not hearsay, and the Confrontation Clause is not implicated. It follows, then, that Dryden has not shown a violation of the Confrontation Clause. See Campbell v. State, 320 Ga. 333, 353 (2024) (statement did not implicate Confrontation Clause when introduced not for the truth of the matter asserted but to show that co-defendant was changing his story to exculpate himself). See also Carter v. State, 302 Ga. 200, 204–05 (2017) (no Confrontation Clause violation where third party’s out-of-court statements admitted to “provide the jury with a complete, coherent conversation and to give context to [the defendant’s] inculpatory statements”). This claim fails, so we affirm.

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating.

## 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 Hall County man's murder conviction, ruling that admitting a 911 call at trial did not violate his right to confront witnesses because the call was not used to prove the truth of what the caller said.

### Plain-language summary

Diandre Dryden was convicted of malice murder after his neighbor, Latasha Smith, was found dead outside their Gainesville apartment complex. A 911 caller identifying himself as 'Dwayne Green' reported seeing a woman lying on the ground, but investigators later traced the call to Smith's own phone, which was found on Dryden at his arrest, and physical evidence tied Dryden to the crime.
On appeal, Dryden argued that letting jurors hear the 911 call violated his constitutional right to confront the person who made it, since that caller never testified and could not be cross-examined. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed, explaining that the confrontation right only applies when an out-of-court statement is used to prove that what it says is true. Here, the prosecution argued the call was actually Dryden faking concern to cover his tracks, so the statement was not offered for its truth and the constitutional right was not triggered. The court affirmed the conviction.

### Holding, as summarized

The Confrontation Clause is not violated by admitting an out-of-court statement, such as a 911 call, when the statement is not offered to prove the truth of what it asserts; because the State here used the call to show Dryden was faking concern to cover up the murder rather than to prove the caller's account was accurate, no constitutional violation occurred.

### Disposition

Affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating.

### Why it matters

The ruling clarifies for Georgia trial courts and prosecutors that recordings like 911 calls can be used against a defendant without violating confrontation rights, so long as they are offered to show something other than the truth of what was said, such as a defendant's own deceptive conduct.

> The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions (1,914 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0659.md?full=1