--- title: Charles v. State collection: opinions id: S26A1046 cite_as: Charles v. State, S26A1046 (Ga. Aug. 13, 2026) canonical_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1046 md_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1046.md text_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1046/text source_url: https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/s26a1046.pdf date: 2026-08-13 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/2026.md previous: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A0871.md next: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1065.md index: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/index.md omitted: opinion extras omitted_chars: 2139 omitted_url: https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1046.md?full=1 docket: S26A1046 court: Supreme Court of Georgia case_type: criminal appeal case_name_full: Ken Clint Patrick Charles v. The State authoring_justice: Lagrua disposition: Appeal dismissed vote: All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating word_count: 1076 date_filed_source: courtlistener record_source: gasupreme legal_areas: - criminal law - appellate procedure upstream_id: ga-s26a1046 summaries_model: claude-sonnet-5 --- # Charles v. State Supreme Court of Georgia, docket S26A1046, 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. S26A1046 Ken Clint Patrick Charles v. The State On Appeal from the Superior Court of Bartow County No. SUCR19970008995 Decided: August 13, 2026 LAGRUA, Justice. In 1997, Appellant Ken Clint Patrick Charles pleaded guilty to malice murder and other crimes and was sentenced to life plus five years to serve in prison. 1 Charles did not appeal. In June 2025, Charles filed a motion for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal under OCGA § 5-6-39.1, and the trial court granted Charles’s motion in March 2026. On March 4, 2026, Charles filed a notice of appeal of his 1997 convictions and sentences entered via guilty plea, and the case was docketed in this Court on March 20, 2026. In May 2025, the General Assembly enacted a new statutory procedure providing the “criteria” for trial courts “to 1 In June 1997, a Bartow County grand jury indicted Charles for malice murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. In November 1997, Charles entered a negotiated guilty plea to all three counts of the indictment and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on the malice murder count and five years to run consecutively on the possession of a firearm count. The aggravated assault count merged with the malice murder count. consider in determining whether to grant leave to file an out-of- time notice of appeal.” Burkett v. State, ___ Ga. ___ (2026), S26A0395, slip op. p. 2 (Ga. May 19, 2026) (citing 2025 Ga. L. 252 §§ 1-3). See OCGA § 5-6-39.1. By its express terms, OCGA § 5-6- 39.1 gives trial courts jurisdiction to consider a defendant’s motion for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal, but only if that motion is filed in accordance with the following time limits: (1) “within 100 days from the expiration of the time period for the filing of such … notice,” OCGA § 5-6-39.1(a)(1); or (2) until June 30, 2026, if the defendant previously had either an out-of-time notice of appeal or “a motion seeking an out-of-time … notice of appeal” dismissed under Cook v. State, 313 Ga. 471 (2022), OCGA § 5-6-39.1(b). Relying on this statute, Charles moved for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal on June 5, 2025, under OCGA § 5-6- 39.1. After a hearing, the trial court granted Charles’s motion on March 4, 2026, pursuant to OCGA § 5-6-39.1(a)(1)(D), 2 and on the same date, Charles filed a notice of appeal to this Court. As explained below, because Charles failed to apply for discretionary review of his guilty plea as required by OCGA § 5-6-35(a)(5.3), this Court lacks appellate jurisdiction to consider his appeal. “In the same act that created the new procedure for 2 It is not clear to us that the trial court had jurisdiction to grant Charles’s motion for leave to file the underlying out-of-time notice of appeal because the record shows that the motion was filed well outside the 100-day timeframe required by subsection (a)(1). See OCGA § 5-6-39.1(a)(1) (“[A] defendant may move for leave to file an out-of-time … notice of appeal within 100 days from the expiration of the time period for the filing of such … notice[.]”). However, in light of our ultimate holding that we lack appellate jurisdiction in this case, we need not address that potential issue of the trial court’s jurisdiction. seeking leave to file an out-of-time motion for new trial or notice of appeal” codified in OCGA § 5-6-39.1, the legislature also amended OCGA § 5-6-35—the statute governing “the kinds of appeals that must be taken by application for discretionary appeal”—to require the filing of a discretionary application “to bring ‘direct appeals from guilty pleas.’” Burkett, slip op. S26A0395 at 3 (citing Ga. L. 2025 at § 1–2). See OCGA § 5-6- 35(a)(5.3). In accordance with OCGA § 5-6-35(a)(5.3), “direct appeals from guilty pleas” must be appealed by filing an application for discretionary appeal, and “[a]ny such applications must be filed within 30 days of the entry of the challenged decision.” Burkett, slip op. S26A0395 at 3 (citing OCGA § 5-6- 35(d)). If such a discretionary application is not filed within that timeframe, “the appellate court in which the application [was] filed must dismiss the application for lack of jurisdiction.” Id. And, while OCGA § 5-6-39.1 permits a defendant to move for leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal under certain circumstances, this statute “says nothing about out-of-time applications for discretionary appeal.” Id. at 3–4 (citing OCGA § 5-6-39.1(a)(2) (“If the judge grants [the motion for leave to file an out-of-time motion for new trial or notice of appeal], the defendant shall have 30 days to file an out-of-time motion for new trial or notice of appeal.”)). Accordingly, [i]f a defendant has missed the jurisdictional deadline to file an application under OCGA § 5-6-35 to seek a direct appeal from his guilty plea, he has missed the opportunity to appeal his guilty plea, notwithstanding the availability of leave to file an out-of-time notice of appeal under OCGA § 5-6-39.1. Id. at 4. Here, because Charles seeks to directly appeal his guilty plea, which required an application for discretionary appeal under OCGA § 5-6-35(a)(5.3); because OCGA § 5-6-35(d) required any such application to have been filed within 30 days of the challenged decision, which did not happen in this case; and because, under its express language, OCGA § 5-6-39.1 does not authorize out-of-time applications for discretionary appeal, this Court does not have jurisdiction to consider Charles’s appeal, and his appeal must be dismissed. See Burkett, slip op. S26A0395 at 4. See also Gable v. State, 290 Ga. 81, 82 (2011) (concluding that the appellate court lacked jurisdiction over a discretionary appeal from the denial of a defendant’s extraordinary motion for new trial, where the application for discretionary appeal was not filed within 30 days of order denying relief). Appeal dismissed. 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 dismissed a man's attempt to appeal his 1997 guilty plea to murder because he never filed the discretionary application required for guilty plea appeals, even though a trial court had let him file a late notice of appeal. ### Plain-language summary Ken Clint Patrick Charles pleaded guilty to malice murder and other charges in Bartow County in 1997 and was sentenced to life plus five years, but he never appealed at the time. In 2025, relying on a new Georgia law letting defendants seek permission for a late notice of appeal, he asked a trial court for that permission, and the court granted it in March 2026. He then tried to appeal his guilty plea directly to the Supreme Court of Georgia. The problem was a different, newer requirement: guilty plea appeals must be brought through a discretionary application, a request asking an appellate court for permission to hear the case, filed within 30 days of the decision being challenged. Charles never filed that application, and the law allowing late notices of appeal does not cover late discretionary applications. Because of that gap, the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled it had no power to hear his appeal and dismissed it. ### Holding, as summarized The court held that because a direct appeal from a guilty plea must be brought by a discretionary application filed within 30 days of the challenged decision, and the out-of-time notice of appeal statute does not authorize late discretionary applications, it lacked jurisdiction to consider Charles's appeal. ### Disposition Appeal dismissed. All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating. ### Why it matters The ruling clarifies that Georgia's new out-of-time appeal law does not rescue people who missed the separate 30-day deadline for discretionary applications from guilty pleas. Defendants, defense attorneys, and trial courts must recognize this gap or risk losing appellate review entirely, no matter how a trial court rules on a late-appeal motion. > The summarized reasoning, checked quotes, suggested questions (2,139 characters) are at https://georgiacommons.org/opinions/S26A1046.md?full=1