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Found 64 matching documents.
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 29, 2024
Baker v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Kenneth Lee Baker's murder convictions for the deaths of his wife and stepdaughter, rejecting his claims that the evidence was too weak and that the trial judge should have given a special jury instruction and excluded certain photos and a notebook.
K. B. testified that on May 16, 2010, he and his mother had spent the night at his aunt’s home in College Park. At 5:39 a.m. on May 17, 2010, Lynnale sent Baker’s cell phone a sexually suggestive text message, apparently intended for someone else. Lynnale dropped K. B. off at school and proceeded to the Griffin residence to see Shaelinda, according to K. B....
Pursuant to a consent-to-search form signed by Baker, law enforcement searched Baker’s truck and found divorce papers and a notebook. The first page in the notebook began with the statement, “My name is Kenneth Lee Baker,” and included Baker’s address and names and some contact information for various people, including Baker’s father and children. The...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · June 11, 2024
Tatum v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that courts applying the independent source doctrine must decide whether police decided to seek a search warrant because of an earlier illegal search, not just whether the warrant application had enough evidence on its own.
Evidence from Deputy Townsend’s testimony, his body-worn camera, and the parties’ stipulations was largely consistent and shows the following. On July 15, 2018, at 10:34 p.m.,5 the Madison County 911 call center received a call regarding an unknown 5 The parties jointly stipulated that the call was received at 10:34 p.m., but the warrant affidavit states...
Deputy Townsend asked if Appellant would show him the last photograph he had taken. Appellant initially declined, but after Deputy Townsend told Appellant that he could detain him and obtain a search warrant, Appellant agreed. As Appellant was pulling up the gallery of photographs on his phone, he tilted his phone away from the deputy, preventing the deputy...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · December 10, 2024
Troutman v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a DeKalb County man's malice murder conviction for stabbing his former friend to death, finding the evidence sufficient and rejecting claims that his trial lawyer's mistakes cost him a fair trial.
The evidence at trial showed the following. Troutman, a 21- year-old high school student, and Clemons, a student at DeVry University, were friends. But their friendship deteriorated when Clemons and a mutual friend whom Troutman had dated, Marlana Ackey, created a fake Facebook profile featuring naked photos of Troutman. Troutman thereafter threatened...
A cell phone associated with Troutman did not make or receive any phone calls or send or receive any texts on January 22, 23, or 24, 2014, and the phone’s location during that time could not be determined. Troutman’s MARTA card records and surveillance photos show that on January 24 Troutman arrived at the Avondale MARTA station at 4:21 p.m. and exited from...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · June 11, 2024
Eleby v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Lamar County man's murder-related convictions from a deadly home invasion, but ordered his armed robbery and conspiracy convictions vacated because they should have merged into other convictions.
Although a .22-caliber bullet was recovered from Bussey’s leg, the handgun used in the crimes was never recovered. GBI Agent Cayce Ingalls testified about text messages that Appellant and Spinks sent to each other from December 4 to 5, 2010. For example, at 4:37 p.m. on December 4, Spinks sent Appellant a text message saying that he would “be over” and that...
The State also offered evidence that Spinks texted Smith at 1:55 a.m. on December 5, asking him if he “want[ed] to hit a lick.” Smith asked, “where about and what’s it worth.” Spinks replied that “it’s [the] college boys,” and Smith said that he lived “right by” them, that he watched them, that there “ain’t none in there worth all that.” Smith added that...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 22, 2024
CAMPBELL v. THE STATE (Four Cases)
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the murder and gang convictions of four Chatham County men, finding that although the trial court made a couple of errors in admitting evidence and instructing the jury, those errors did not affect the verdicts.
Sergeant Santoro testified about maps created based on records showing which cell phone towers Campbell’s and Parrish’s phones were connected to on the day of the murder. The records showed that at around 6:03 p.m., Campbell’s and Parrish’s phones were both in the area that was served by the same cell phone tower as Parrish’s house.10 At 6:16 p.m.,...
(c) Pastures’s Murder In January 2015, Pastures and his roommate, Harris, heard that they were in trouble with the gang, and on January 19, Pastures asked Sanders and Speaks to return the guns that Sanders had been keeping for Pastures.12 Around 5:00 p.m., Sanders and Speaks arrived at Pastures and Harris’s apartment, ostensibly to return the guns. Harris...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · September 17, 2024
Pyne v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Jacob Pyne's murder conviction in the shooting death of Gerard Foster, rejecting claims that his trial lawyer was ineffective and that the prosecutor's closing argument improperly shifted the burden of proof.
Later on July 6, law enforcement officers located K. C.’s Impala at a residence connected to Demarcus White, a friend of Pyne’s, and they towed the vehicle to department headquarters. After obtaining a search warrant and conducting a search of the vehicle, law enforcement officers located Pyne’s cell phone and a credit card in his name inside the vehicle....
At trial, the State called Lisa Arnold, a GBI digital forensic investigator, to testify regarding her examination and data extraction of Pyne’s cell phone. During Pyne’s cross-examination of this witness, defense counsel questioned Investigator Arnold about whether she had also performed a data extraction of Foster’s cell phone, which was collected during...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · January 17, 2024
Adams v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Fulton County man's murder conviction for a fatal drive-by shooting, rejecting his claims that the evidence was too weak, that evidence found in his home should have been suppressed, and that his lawyer had a conflict of interest from representing him and his brother together.
On August 22, 2016, the police went to the Adams home to execute an arrest warrant for Leon, who, unrelated to the shooting, had violated the terms of his probation. Officers knocked at the front door, and a woman permitted them to enter. When they showed the woman the warrant, she claimed nobody else was in the residence. But then Xavier Adams — Isaiah’s...
The State also proved that, in addition to the .380-caliber handgun used to shoot Lowe, a 9mm handgun was fired into Dobson’s car. That handgun was discovered in the Adams home in Isaiah’s room the day following the murder. Further, a cell phone seized from the Adams home following the brothers’ arrests contained evidence that the phone’s user had,...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · April 30, 2024
Ward v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Paulding County man's felony murder and related convictions, rejecting his claims that the jury should have heard a voluntary manslaughter option, that his second-shooting conviction was legally inconsistent, and that his lawyer was ineffective.
10 Mason testified that she spoke to Brooks by phone on the night of the shootings, and she told him to park the Pathfinder in the garage at George’s house because it was “linked” to Mason as the renter of the vehicle. On March 30, 2021, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Ward’s residence and located Ward’s cell phone. Law enforcement...
The evidence presented in this case established the following with respect to Ward’s involvement in the second shooting: (1) Ward was driving a black Ford Explorer with New York plates on the night of March 24, 2021, which he later abandoned at a local park; (2) testimony from Ronnie Scogin and video footage captured from the Scoginses’ exterior...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 31, 2024
WILLIAMS, CONGRESSWOMAN v. POWELL
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a state law that makes it a crime to disrupt General Assembly sessions and meetings, rejecting claims that the law is unconstitutionally vague or so broad it sweeps in protected speech.
1. The statute is seriously flawed. I concur fully in the Court’s decision today that OCGA § 16-11- 34.1 does not criminalize so much protected speech and expressive conduct relative to its constitutionally permissible applications that it must be struck down as overbroad under State v. Fielden, 280 Ga. 444 (629 SE2d 252) (2006). But it is nevertheless...
wide-ranging scope of meetings far from the Capitol, as legislative study committees meet throughout the state. And it also reaches meetings of “caucus[es] of members,” some of which are public and clearly defined, such as the majority and minority caucuses, while others may be less obvious to outsiders.20 By not requiring disruptive intent or actual...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · August 13, 2024
Nunnally v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a DeKalb County man's murder conviction, ruling that circumstantial evidence including cell phone records and text messages was enough to prove he killed his marijuana customer and that a party-to-a-crime jury instruction was proper.
2 On direct and cross-examination, Lamar conceded that he previously told investigators that Mitchell left his home around 2:00 a.m. on December 31, 2018. Notwithstanding his prior statement, Lamar confirmed at trial that Mitchell left between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. Appellant in November 2018 for him to use, and the other ending in -2761, which she used....
Mitchell’s mother testified that because her tablet was synced with Mitchell’s phone, she could read the text messages on Mitchell’s phone. Using this information, she began calling the numbers Mitchell’s phone had recently texted. These numbers included the number corresponding to the phone McClendon had provided to Appellant. When Mitchell’s mother called...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · January 17, 2024
Williams v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Chatham County man's murder conviction for a nightclub shooting, finding that any errors in admitting cell phone evidence and a demonstration video were harmless given the strong evidence against him.
1. Williams argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence seized from his cell phone. Assuming without deciding that the admission of this evidence was error, we conclude that any error was harmless. As established at a pre-trial hearing, Detective Jason Manley proceeded to Charietta’s home on the day of the shooting....
Later, police obtained a passcode for the phone from Charietta. Williams filed a motion to suppress evidence gathered from the search of his phone, arguing that police illegally seized the phone without a search warrant or probable cause, and illegally searched his phone when they “without [a] warrant or probable cause deputized [Charietta] as [an] agent of...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · March 14, 2024
Andre Pugh v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Andre Pugh's murder conviction for killing his wife, ruling that the cell phone search warrant used against him was valid and that his lawyers were not ineffective for how they challenged it.
phone necessarily must list each specific kind or category of data the police may look through when they search the phone’s contents. Just as specifying the address of a home can be particular enough to allow police to search rooms, closets, and cabinets throughout the home, identifying a specific cell phone as the “place to be searched” may well be...
Instead, the point to take from Wilson is that a search warrant for a cell phone also needs to tell the police, with sufficient particularity, what they can look for in their search of the phone. As we indicated in Wilson, the warrant must limit the object of the search to evidence of the crimes that the police have probable cause to believe the suspect...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 15, 2024
Siders v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a man's murder conviction in a drug-related home invasion killing, rejecting his claims about insufficient evidence, wrongly admitted social media posts, and jury instructions.
Detective Scott Demeester, who was qualified as an expert in cell phone data interpretation and cell-site analysis, testified regarding data recovered from the defendants’ cell phones. A cell phone associated with Washington2 called and texted Jackson’s cell phone several times in the days leading up to the shooting. When Washington called Jackson around...
Additional hotel surveillance video showed that the Pontiac entered the Best Western parking lot at 6:20 a.m. on the day after the shooting. Although the video did not show who exited the car, it did show three men unload what appeared to be heavy bags from the Pontiac. At 8:01 a.m., the three men returned to the car and left the hotel. The car then...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 15, 2024
Nabors v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Fulton County man's murder conviction, rejecting his claims that his lawyer wrongly advised him not to testify and that the case rested only on accomplice testimony.
gender of the runners. Neither police officer recalled seeing a fourth runner. The third witness at the gas station testified that her attention was drawn to the Monte Carlo by the sound of arguing, immediately followed by gunfire. This witness testified that she saw three or four people around the vehicle, including a man later identified as Milan, who she...
4 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (86 SCt 1602, 16 LE2d 694) (1966). stated Nabors went to the hospital with Milan and others in the early morning hours of April 3, 2018. However, the data offered no insight into Nabors’s location after 6:22 a.m., Nabors’s call logs showed no outgoing activity after that time, and his phone stopped receiving calls shortly...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · August 13, 2024
Bowman v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Polk County man's murder conviction for killing his ex-fiancee, rejecting claims that his trial lawyer was ineffective and finding any error in admitting evidence of his past violence against a former wife was harmless.
On April 4, 2017, at 5:28 a.m., Wolfe’s cell phone texted Bowman’s cell phone, “Good morning.” Bowman’s phone did not reply.2 Eleven seconds later, Wolfe texted “Good morning” to another cell phone ending in the digits 7925 (“-7925 phone”), which texted Wolfe’s phone “Good morning” at 5:30 a.m. The -7925 phone then called Wolfe’s phone at 5:30 a.m., and...
According to Detective Scott Demeester, an expert in cell phone forensics, the -7925 phone was a prepaid phone that lacked subscriber information and started service on March 9, 2017, about a month before the murder; was “not used very often” and “primarily communicated with the decedent”; and made or received only 11 calls from March 28 to April 7, 2017,...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 15, 2024
Wallace v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld David Wallace's felony murder conviction in a Fulton County gang shooting, rejecting arguments that the evidence was too weak, that being restrained with a leg iron at trial was unfair, and that his lawyer was ineffective.
Detective Tyrone Dennis testified for the State as an expert in gangs, as mentioned above. As a general matter, Detective Dennis explained that Bloods members used the color red, five-pointed stars, and red tattoos to identify themselves. Furthermore, Detective Dennis explained to the jury that older members of gangs are called “OGs,” short for “original...
The State also presented tattoo and cell-phone evidence to the jury. Investigator Charles Prescott of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, who oversaw the office’s gang unit, testified that he executed a search warrant for Appellant’s, Barber’s, and Bowdery’s tattoos and markings by photographing them. According to Investigator Prescott, Appellant...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · July 2, 2024
Grant v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Chatham County woman's felony murder conviction, ruling that circumstantial evidence linking her to the man who killed a gambler who had just won thousands of dollars was legally sufficient.
Shawntray’s body was found lying next to his vehicle in the parking lot of his apartment complex. He had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police recovered five shell casings and several spent bullets from around Shawntray’s body, as well as Shawntray’s empty wallet. Shawntray’s Springfield XD 9mm handgun was also...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · August 13, 2024
Johnson v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a DeKalb County man's murder conviction for stabbing his ex-girlfriend's father, rejecting claims that the trial judge should have given certain jury instructions or excluded a hearsay statement.
On the same day, Jasmine obtained an ex parte temporary restraining order prohibiting Johnson from “harassing, harming, or abusing the Petitioner’s family or household” and stating that Johnson had no legal right to visit and had no custodial rights regarding K. J. Johnson “kept calling” and texting Louis and Robinson about K. J. so much that they “had to ....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 14, 2024
Feder v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Visheslav Feder's murder conviction, ruling that a jury's mixed verdicts on related shooting charges were merely inconsistent, not legally repugnant, and that his lawyer's decision to skip a suppression motion was reasonable.
Based on the record before us, Feder has failed to prove that trial counsel’s performance was deficient. The record makes clear that trial counsel made the strategic decision not to move to suppress the cell phone records. Though Feder does not detail what “damaging” evidence in these records should have been suppressed, trial counsel testified at the...
cell phone records. Therefore, it was reasonable for trial counsel not to raise a motion to suppress. See Washington v. State, 313 Ga. 771, 774 (3) (b) (873 SE2d 132) (2022) (appellant failed to show that counsel performed deficiently by failing to object to evidence on foundation grounds where appellant failed to argue, much less demonstrate, that the...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 6, 2024
Rashad v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the murder conviction of a Floyd County man for killing his girlfriend's two-year-old son, finding the evidence was strong enough for the jury and that his trial lawyer's choices were not constitutionally deficient.
(i) April 12, 2018 On the morning of April 12, Sydney, taking Adrian with her, dropped L. D. off at school and then ran errands with Adrian. After Sydney and Adrian returned home, she cleaned the house and he ran around. At one point, Adrian knocked a TV onto himself. Sydney picked him up, and after he “wiggl[ed] to get back down,” she set him down and he...
Early in the morning at about 6:00 a.m., after Sydney texted Rashad to ask if he was up, he texted: “I hope this boy is okay [ ]b/c he acted like his [sic] is so sleepy.” Sydney texted back that she was worried about Adrian. At about 6:50 a.m., as she was getting off work, she and Rashad spoke on the phone, and Rashad told her that Adrian had a seizure. In...
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