Notable Opinions: April 15

Today the court issued two notable opinions regarding the "prejudice" prong of the Strickland v. Washington "ineffective assistance of counsel" test.



Dozier v. Watson (S19A0027)

In Dozier, the Court reversed an order by the Superior Court of Jenkins County granting Jeffrey Watson's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Writing for the Court, Justice Ellington explained that a trial court may not grant the writ purely because trial counsel's performance was constitutionally ineffective. Instead, an ineffective assistance claim requires showing both that the lawyer's performance was deficient and that the deficient performance was harmful to the criminal defendant. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687-689 (1984). The harmfulness prong, commonly referred to as "prejudicial," requires that there is a reasonable probability that but for the lawyer's deficient performance, the outcome would have been different. Thus, it is not enough to conclude that "prejudice was apparent because [Watson] was deprived of constitutionally sufficient performance," the insufficient performance must cause harm within the proceeding. In the context of Watson's case (dealing with the alleged failure to adequately explain the consequences of being sentenced as a recidivist under a plea agreement), this would mean that "Watson had shown 'that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.' " (4) (citing Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985)).

https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/s19a0027.pdf

Burgess v. Hall (S19A0041)


In Burgess, the Court affirmed the denial of Burgess's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Burgess's habeas claim asserts that his appellate counsel was constitutionally ineffective because he failed to pursue lines of evidence that may have been used to impeach the principal witness against Burgess. "To show that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to argue that trial counsel was ineffective, a defendant must show that trial counsel was deficient and the deficiency prejudiced the trial."
(7). Writing for the Court, Justice Peterson emphasized that the record reflects that the trial counsel tried at length to impeach the relevant witness, and appellate counsel did not believe that the cross examination of the witness (which is typically a matter of trail strategy) could satisfy both prongs of the Strickland test. Thus, even if the Court agreed that the performance of both lawyers was deficient, Burgess still could not show that their performance negatively impacted the outcome because the added benefit of "[a]ny additional attack on Weems's credibility would have had marginal value." (10). For the same reason, Burgess's claims that the State had failed to disclose relevant impeachment evidence could failed to demonstrate the so-called "Brady violation" prejudiced the outcome of the trial.

https://www.gasupreme.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/s19a0041.pdf

Murder Convictions and Life Sentences

The Court also upheld murder convictions and life prison sentences for:

Carpenter v. State (S19A0439)
Castillo-Velazquez v. State (S19A0323)
Coley v. State (S19A0457)
Davis v. State (S19A0250)
Jones v. State (S18A1208)


Other Decisions

Clark v. State (S19A0038)

In Clark, the Court held that a trial court's initial decision denying Clark's motion for out-of-time appeal was res judicata against a second motion seeking the same relief. "Res judicata precludes re-litigation of claims where the cause of action and the parties or their privies are identical and the claim was previously adjudicated on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction." Brooks v. State, 301 Ga. 748, 750-751 (2017). Thus, "the trial court was precluded from revisiting the issue of [Clark]'s entitlement to an out-of-time appeal of his convictions, [and] it did not err in denying the [second] motion for an out-of-time appeal." Id.