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Found 319 matching passages in 138 documents.
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 21, 2023
State v. Wilson
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed a trial court's decision to throw out evidence from a murder suspect's cell phones, ruling the search warrant let police grab 'any and all' data without limiting the search to evidence of the crime.
PINSON, Justice, concurring. We need to talk about cell phones. In Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (134 SCt 2473, 189 LE2d 430) (2014), the United States Supreme Court took a small step down the road of applying the Fourth Amendment to the modern cell phone. Riley addressed the question whether the police could, without a warrant, search digital...
Riley rejected this understanding of cell phones. Indeed, the Riley Court supposed treating cell phones like other physical items that could be found on a person was “like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon. Both are ways of getting from point A to point B, but little else justifies lumping them together.”...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · October 11, 2023
Prodigies Child Care Management, LLC v. Cotton
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the 'special circumstances exception' used by the Court of Appeals for lunch-break and commuting car accidents is not a real separate legal rule, but just a way of applying the ordinary test for when an employer can be sued for an employee's actions.
unpaid lunch break during her work day, and on January 26, she used her lunch break to perform in a puppet show so that she could earn extra credit in one of her courses. Earlier that day, Bouie told her manager that she would return from her lunch break “a little bit late,” likely “a little after 2[:00 p.m.].” She clocked out for her lunch break at 12:53...
In addition, the amended complaint alleged, and Cotton later drivers from holding a cell phone in their hands, see OCGA § 40-6-241, was not in effect at the time of the accident. See Ga. L. 2018, p. 127, § 4. 3 The amended complaint also alleged a claim of negligent training and supervision against University Childcare. That claim is not at issue here, so...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 2, 2023
Saylor v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Tavaughn Saylor's murder conviction and related crimes in the killing of a Gwinnett County teenager, rejecting his claims about insufficient evidence, a wrongly denied severance motion, jury selection, and a gang charge.
The defendants were ultimately arrested. At the time of their arrest, Sillah and Saylor were in a silver BMW that matched the description given by Hrnjak. Sillah was interviewed by the police, and a recording of the interview was played at trial. He admitted that he and Stewart discussed robbing Sampleton, but denied participating in the crime. Sillah...
In this Court’s opinion affirming the convictions of Saylor’s co- defendants, we summarized the trial evidence in the light most favorable to the verdicts as follows: Sillah, known as “Young,” was a member and leader of the Young Wavy Goons (“YWG”), a gang affiliated with the Bloods gang and whose members were mostly high errors, we affirmed. See Sillah v....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · September 19, 2023
Adams v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Leon Adams's murder conviction in a Fulton County drive-by shooting, rejecting his claims that the evidence was too thin and that shared defense counsel with his brother created a disabling conflict of interest.
When the police arrived at the nightclub, Ward showed them the video recordings from his security cameras. As he looked at the recordings with the officers, he identified Pitts and the Adams brothers getting into a white Ford Escape that matched the description of the car Dobson said had followed her and Lowe. Isaiah got into the driver’s seat, Pitts got...
The firearms recovered included a SAR Arms 9mm handgun. Further investigation revealed that this gun had been stolen from its owner a few days before the shooting. The owner testified that he kept the gun in the door panel of his truck. The last time he saw the gun was during a lunch break, when he was accompanied in his car by his co-worker, Xavier Adams....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 7, 2023
Wilson v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Antonio Wilson's felony murder conviction, ruling that a marijuana purchase gone wrong was a legally sufficient basis for the murder charge and that the trial court handled the evidence and jury instructions correctly.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence at trial showed the following. (a) On the morning of the shooting, Wilson was at Braindon Cayo’s house smoking marijuana with Cayo, Adonis Lewis, Cayo’s girlfriend, Britney Coleman, and Wilson’s girlfriend, Auviance West. At around 2:00 p.m. they were joined by Jalene Wright. The group...
Lewis picked up Griffin’s bookbag and got back in the car. On the way back to Cayo’s house, Wilson took the SIM card from Griffin’s phone and Cayo threw the phone out the window. When they arrived at Cayo’s house, Wilson, Cayo, and Lewis divided up the marijuana from the bookbag. Then they burned the bookbag and talked about selling the murder weapon....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 7, 2023
SILLAH v. THE STATE (Two Cases)
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia largely upheld the murder convictions of Darnell Sillah and Andrew Murray for killing a Gwinnett County teenager, but ruled that two of Sillah's conspiracy convictions should have merged into the completed crimes.
English frequently bought goods from Murray and re-sold them. English testified that Murray, Sillah, and a man he did not recognize came to his apartment on December 19. They arrived in a silver BMW and Sillah and Murray were carrying handguns. Murray asked if English could sell some items for him. English sold many of the items that were stolen from the...
Murray, proceeding pro se on appeal, appears to argue that the trial court failed to consider the merits of his motion for new trial and that the State failed to present evidence of guilt at the motion for new trial hearing. The record belies Murray’s first claim, and the State had no burden of proof at the hearing, negating the second claim. So we affirm....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 31, 2023
Knox v. State of Georgia
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that a lawsuit by five University System professors challenging Georgia's 2017 'campus carry' law was moot, because the Board of Regents itself adopted a policy allowing guns on campus consistent with that law.
5 See Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. VIII (“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.”); Ga. L. 1994, p. 1012, § 4 (adding public or private technical schools, vocational schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions...
10 In pertinent part, OCGA § 16-11-127.1 (c) (2017) as amended provided: The provisions of this Code section [making it unlawful for any person to carry or possess any weapon while within a school safety zone, at a school function, or on a bus or other transportation furnished by a school] shall not apply to: ... (20) (A) Any weapons carry license holder...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 7, 2023
Rucker v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a man's murder conviction for a fatal home invasion in Southwest Atlanta, rejecting his arguments about a missing jury instruction and a delayed trial.
Rucker directed Finch to lie on the floor, and Finch begged Rucker not to kill his wife. Patricia continued screaming, and she “could see where [Rucker] had shot [Finch] on his stomach,” and there was “[a] lot of blood” and “[a] big hole.” Patricia begged Rucker not to kill them, and Rucker told her to “shut up” and “lie down on the floor.” Patricia...
4 Patrick Pinson, the Finches’ next door neighbor, testified that he “was According to Patricia, she and Finch also stayed in their bedroom for about 15 minutes after the shootings to make sure the intruders were gone, and then, they jumped up and ran into the living room, looking for Printup. Patricia testified that, even though Finch was “bleeding so...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · December 19, 2023
Bates v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the murder-related convictions of three men involved in a fatal shooting during a robbery, rejecting challenges to the evidence, a jury instruction on conspiracy, jailhouse informant testimony, and a mistrial denial.
James called 911 at 1:16 p.m. Later, when shown photo arrays, James identified Southern as the man with the gun and Bates as the man with dreadlocks who had been speaking to Hagood.2 Detective Scott Demeester, the lead investigator on the case, arrived at the scene at around 1:45 p.m. Demeester contacted Hagood’s wife, who told him that Hagood normally...
The records from Rayshon Smith’s cell phone showed that someone used it several hours after it was stolen to call MetroPCS customer service to unlock it. After it was unlocked, the phone was used to place and receive calls and text messages to and from people that phone had never been used to contact before it was stolen. The new contacts included Southern,...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · June 21, 2023
Greene v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Douglas County man's malice murder conviction for strangling Sheila Bryant, rejecting challenges to his statements, autopsy photos, prior-acts evidence, and jury instructions, over a three-justice dissent.
“Given the medical examiner’s testimony, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it concluded that the autopsy photograph[s] [were] relevant under Rule 401’s broad definition.” Mitchell, 307 Ga. at 864 (3) (b). The trial court also determined that the photographs were necessary for the medical examiner to explain Bryant’s injuries, and we cannot...
14 The precise time of the searches was not included in the cell phone data. Assuming that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting this photograph of Greene’s cell phone into evidence, we conclude that any such abuse of discretion was harmless error and “requires reversal only if it harms” Greene’s “substantial rights.” Roberts v. State, 315 Ga....
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · June 21, 2023
MUSE v. THE STATE (Three Cases)
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the murder and gang convictions of three men involved in a shootout at an Atlanta gas station, rejecting challenges to the evidence, jury procedures, and severance of their joint trial.
Investigator T. Bacon of the City of Atlanta Police Department investigated the crime scene. He testified that the victims’ car was struck by nine bullets, with three bullets striking the front passenger window. He added that he found a large number of shell casings at the crime scene. Vanna Kelly, a GBI firearms expert, testified that the four .45-caliber...
Sergeant Lakea Gaither testified that she had been a detective in the gang unit of the Atlanta Police Department for over seven years and had encountered over a thousand gang members during that time. She testified that the Bloods are a criminal street gang acting within Fulton County and that the “Nine Trey Bloods,” nicknamed “Billy Bad Ass,” are a sect of...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · September 19, 2023
Kennebrew v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Phillip Kennebrew's murder conviction from his second trial, ruling that a dead witness's testimony from his first trial was properly admitted and that any errors in other hearsay rulings were harmless.
testimony. Appellant also challenges the trial court’s admission of hearsay statements made by the victim, which were admitted under the residual hearsay exception, OCGA § 24-8-807. We affirm for the reasons set out below. 1. The evidence at trial showed the following. In October 2011, Alexander lived with his friend, Darrious Oliver, in a one-bedroom...
According to the cell-phone records, in the early morning hours of October 18, Babbage’s phone sent text messages to both Appellant’s and Samuel Hall’s phones and received responses from 3 Tew testified at Appellant’s first trial. Because she had died before Appellant was retried, her testimony from the first trial was read to the jury during Appellant’s...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · July 5, 2023
Wood v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Bobby Wood Jr.'s felony murder conviction for shooting Aaron Skinner, ruling that any errors at trial were harmless because the evidence against his self-defense claim was strong.
informed Detective Burrell that his sister, Sheila Wood (“Sheila”), had dated Skinner over a year ago and that he “met [Skinner] a few times and . . . didn’t like him.” According to Appellant, Sheila and Skinner had not had any contact in the past year, until Skinner showed up at Sheila’s house around midnight on the night before the shooting. Appellant had...
On the morning after the shooting, officers went back to investigate the scene, which was left unsecured overnight. Officers observed three bullet strikes in the ditch area. Officers also observed four additional bullet strikes outside of the ditch and in the road and general area. Further, the officers found in the general area a total of seven shell...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 31, 2023
Perez v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Geovanni Perez's felony murder conviction in a Gwinnett County drug-robbery shooting, ruling the evidence was sufficient and that police search warrants for his phone and home were valid.
11 In support of his probable-cause claim, Perez relies on United States v. Griffith, which held that a warrant authorizing a search of the appellant’s apartment for cell phones, among other things, was not supported by probable cause, because the affidavit underlying the warrant failed to set forth any facts showing that the appellant owned a cell phone,...
the car keys, the affidavit underlying the warrant attested that investigators did not locate “the keys and key fob to [Gardner’s] Nissan Titan truck[,] which he drove to the bowling alley.” The magistrate could reasonably infer from this information that Perez took Gardner’s keys and key fob at the time of the shooting and that there was a fair probability...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · August 21, 2023
HENDERSON v. THE STATE (Two Cases)
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the murder convictions of Demetre Mason and Frankland Henderson, rejecting challenges to trial evidence, a co-defendant's statement, and the decision to try them together.
Brown instructed everyone to delete any pictures they had with Williams on Instagram. Harrell and Shardow rifled through Wil- liams’s purse and then burned it. The following day, Harrell and Singleton threw away some of Williams’s other belongings at an el- ementary school down the street. (b) At 4:14 a.m. on May 19, 2014, Alyssia Smith, who lived near the...
(d) Investigator Waine Pinckney, who was qualified as an ex- pert in street gangs, testified extensively at trial. Investigator Pinckney first explained generally about gang structure and culture. He said that within the larger Bloods gang were a number of subsets, including the subset involved in this case, the Nine Trey Gangsters. Nine Trey Gangsters,...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · February 7, 2023
Williams v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Fulton County man's felony murder conviction, ruling that neither the cell phone location warrant used against him nor the jury instructions given at trial amounted to plain error.
2. Williams contends that the trial court plainly erred by admitting CSLI related to Williams’s cell phone because the search warrant authorizing the seizure of Williams’s phone records6 lacked 6 For the records to be searched, the warrant states the following: Verizon Telephone Number 704-718-8366 from the dates of February 27, 2015 through March 9, 2015....
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and it requires that a search warrant “particularly describ[e] the places to be searched.” U. S. Const. Amend. IV. See Bryant v. State, 301 Ga. 617, 619 (2) (800...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · April 18, 2023
Martin v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld a Chatham County man's felony murder conviction, ruling that phone records, surveillance video, and physical evidence gave the jury enough to find him guilty as a party to the crime.
At 7:12 p.m., Underwood backed his red SUV into a parking space near the entrance to the convenience store beside a white Honda. Underwood opened the front driver’s side door but remained in the SUV with the lights on and the engine running. Appellant and another man approached, and Underwood produced a digital scale and several grapefruit-sized baggies of...
2. Appellant’s sole enumeration of error is that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions as a matter of constitutional due process and OCGA § 24-14-6. We disagree. The proper standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of constitutional due process is whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · January 18, 2023
Montgomery v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed the murder conviction of Gregory Montgomery, rejecting his claims that the trial judge gave a flawed jury recharge and should have granted a new trial as a 'thirteenth juror.'
Appellant and Johnson ran through some woods, down a hill, and through an adjacent apartment complex, where a security guard at the complex saw them. Meanwhile, back on the cul-de-sac, Wheeler climbed over the front seat of the Camaro, opened the driver-side door, crawled over Rogers, and got out. Rogers told Wheeler that Rogers had been shot and asked...
BOGGS, Chief Justice. Appellant Gregory Montgomery challenges his 2019 convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Justuss Rogers. Appellant contends that the trial court erred in its recharge to the jury after the jury sent the court a note during deliberations and that the court should have granted him a new...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · September 6, 2023
Green v. State
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia upheld Tarus Malike Green's felony murder conviction in a Chatham County shooting, rejecting his claims about the evidence, jury access to cell phone records, and a witness's recorded statement.
Green also told officers that Hills took from Bivin’s car a green rifle, which was the gun Bivin planned to sell. Green claimed that he later bought the gun from Garnell Quarterman, Hills’s brother, and then resold it. Quarterman testified that he did not sell this gun to Green. The gun was never found. 2 The State indicted Hills on four counts of murder...
1. Green asserts that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of constitutional due process to sustain his conviction for felony murder predicated on armed robbery. In reviewing sufficiency, this Court determines whether “any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443...
Supreme Court opinion · Supreme Court of Georgia · May 16, 2023
State v. Britton
Summary by Georgia Commons (AI-written): The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed a trial court order that had thrown out cell phone location evidence in a Fulton County murder case, ruling the search warrant affidavit was neither false nor invalid.
The Roswell officers obtained the license plate number for the black Dodge Charger from the LPRs and used that information to identify the vehicle’s owner as James Travious English, Britton’s co- defendant. The police later obtained a search warrant to obtain “call detail records with historical cell tower and geographical location data” for English’s cell...
Following a hearing, the trial court issued an order granting the motion to suppress based on its findings that the Affidavit contained both a material misrepresentation and a discrepancy that undercut the Warrant’s validity. Specifically, the trial court found that the Affidavit materially misrepresented that English was in “extensive communication with...
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