Supreme Court of Georgia - Scott Key & Associates

A Key to Success on Georgia Appeals is to Really Know Your Audience

July 23, 2010/by J. Scott Key

When I succeed in my brief writing or at oral argument (I measure success by writing a good brief and by fluid conversational delivery at argument — not necessarily by result), it is because I stop to think about my audience. More particularly, I remember that my audience includes a set of staff attorneys and judges or justices with a stack of briefs to read that hopefully don’t look exactly like mine.

An article in today’s legalnewsline.com reminded me of the fact that the people who hear my argument and who read the briefs that I write are people with interests beyond my particular cases. They even have interests beyond the law.

According to the article, Justice Robert Benham of the Georgia Supreme Court “has his own woodworking shop, [where he makes] objects like toys and music boxes with his two sons.” He also “builds birdhouses for Habitat for Humanity.”

Those facts humanize him and tell me more than his official biography does. Official biographies, like resumes, start looking the same after a while. But to know that someone makes toys, music boxes, and birdhouses for Habitat tells me that one member of the audience is compassionate. It also tells me that workmanship and craft are important to him. I should be very precise and concise in the future.

Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner make it a point to tell lawyer how important it is to know about your judge before you present your brief, try your case or show up for oral argument. In their book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. Scalia and Garner advise:

“learn as much as you readily can about the judge’s background. Say you’re appearing before Judge Florence Kubitzky. With a little computer research and asking around, you discover that fly-fishing is her passion; that her father died when she was only seven; that her paternal grandparents, who were both professors at a local college, took charge of her upbringing; that she once chaired the state Democratic party; that she enjoys bridge … and so on. … you might well find some unpredictable use for this knowledge over the course of a lengthy trial.”

Most importantly, they add, “at the very least, these details will humanize the judge for you, so you will be arguing to a human being instead of a chair.”

Keeping in mind that your audience consists of people and not a judicial machine will help you write better briefs that help them decide the case. If yours is the 53rd brief in a stack of 100 that looks exactly like the others, then your judge might get bored, might skim your text, or might just affirm the conviction because that is a nice safe default.

Of course, not all judicial hobbies are good. I suppose that when you find bad hobbies, you have a nice new enumeration of error to raise for your client and and the opportunity for a new judge with a healthy life and more wholesome hobbies.

A New Approach to Felony Murder and a New Template to Attack Precedent in Georgia

July 19, 2010/by J. Scott Key

There are two big stories in the Georgia Supreme Court’s decision in Jackson v. State. The first is that the rule of causation for felony murder that had been in place for thirty years has been changed. The second is that the majority has provided a framework for any appellant to use in future cases to use to attack the concept of precedent itself. While it probably is intended as a tool for the State to use against persons charged and convicted of crimes, it is worth a try on your client’s behalf. Precedent doesn’t mean what it used to mean, and by “used to” I mean before the Jackson opinion came out.

This opinion has several moving parts. So many, in fact, that I wrote up a State v. Jackson mindmap.pdf for use in interpreting and following it.

Facts and Procedural Posture

Factually, the case reads like a case out of a law school exam. Carlester Jackson, Warren Smith, and Jerold Daniels decided to rob a drug dealer. Daniels approached the intended victim with a handgun with Jackson nearby in a getaway car. The victim and Daniels exchanged gunfire and Daniels was killed by the victim who was acting in self defense. The State charged Jackson with felony murder for causing the death of co-conspirator Daniels while all three were engaged in the felony act of armed robbery.

In short, the issue in the case was whether a co-defendant can be charged with, prosecuted, and convicted for the death of a co-defendant at the hands of a victim who kills another co-defendant in self-defense.

The trial court followed precedent and dismissed the charges. The State appealed the dismissal specifically to ask the Supreme Court to overrule Crane v. State, the case that said that such a prosecution could not be brought.

The Supreme Court reversed the trial court, overruled Crane, and set up a new test — a meta-test — to use to determine which precedents are worthy of standing and which ones ought to go.

Hames Case From Ga. Supreme Court Haunts Original Lawyer

July 14, 2010/by J. Scott Key

The Walton County Examiner features an interview with Anthony Carter,
Joshua Hames’s original lawyer. Mr. Hames just had his conviction for felony murder related to a hunting accident over seven years ago, reversed on appeal In that interview, Mr. Carter explains
that the case still haunts him and that he followed it after he was
replaced by private counsel. Look closely, and you can see the irony
dripping from the page.

Mr. Carter was originally appointed to represent Mr. Hames when he was
charged with the shooting death of his brother while the two were
hunting in Walton County. When the lower court refused to
grant Mr. Hames a bond, the family went with private counsel.

It appears that the State believed that Mr. Hames intentionally shot
his brother because he was originally charged with malice murder and
various other charges. When the trial ended and the dust cleared, Mr.
Hames was acquitted of malice murder but convicted of felony murder
for a hunting violation that resulted in the alleged victim’s death.

The only problem was that the State failed to allege or prove an
essential element of the offense. Well, that’s not the ONLY problem.
The other problem is that trial counsel never noticed that there was
an element missing or that the State failed to put up any evidence to
prove it. And there’s another problem. Trial counsel did not notice
the problem on appeal either.

Mr. Hames set about challenging the conviction himself and learned,
apparently from digging around in the prison law library that he was
in prison for life for felony murder when the State was an essential
element shy of proving the felony. He filed a habeas corpus petition
on his own and won. The State appealed the grant of his habeas —
apparently not wishing to concede the impropriety of imprisoning a man
for life for an unintentional killing without a crime alleged or
proved as the underlying felony.

Justice Nahmias wrote the opinion (PDF) for a unanimous Supreme Court
ordering his release seven years after he began serving time for
murder.

Sounds to me like the wrong lawyer feels haunted.

Supreme Court of Georgia Changes Approach to Sentencing After Appeal

July 13, 2010/by J. Scott Key

In Adams v. State.pdf, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that it is appropriate for a sentencing judge, after a reversal for judicial error, to impose a greater sentence on an individual count as long as the sentence in the aggregate is not increased. The dissent, consisting of three justices, reasons that the Court’s holding reverse long-established precedent.

The Key Facts

Here are the facts. Tavins Lee Adams was convicted of child molestation, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, and enticing a child for indecent purposes for actions that took place in a single incident.

The Original Sentence

aggravated child molestation merged into aggravated sodomy 20 years to serve
child molestation 20 years to serve
enticing a child for indecent purposes 20 years to serve

Sentence After Motion for New Trial was Granted and After Re-sentencing

child molestation merged into aggravated sodomy 30 years to serve
enticing a child for indecent purposes 20 years to serve

Adams appealed, arguing that the trial court’s decision to increase the sentence on aggravated sodomy was in increase in punishment, not allowed by the United States Supreme Court’s holding in North Carolina v. Pearce. The Court of Appeals held that because, the aggregate sentence was less than the original aggregate sentence, there was no problem with the sentence.

Getting Past the Presumption

The majority opinion, consisting of the usual suspects on cases like these (Nahmias, Melton, Carley, and Thompson), held that the trial court did not violate the principles in North Carolina v. Pearce (a U.S. Supreme Court holding that a trial court cannot increase a person’s sentence after he prevails on appeal. The Court held that there is a presumption of vindictiveness whenever a more severe sentence is imposed after a new trial, “which may be overcome by objective information in the record justifying the increased sentence”).

For the majority, it was key that the trial judge granted a motion for new trial and merged an offense rather than being told to do so by the appellate court. For the minority, such a distinction did not make a difference because the judge followed the law and he acknowledged making a mistake after such was pointed out by the defendant.

Meet the New Analysis

After the majority takes apart the presumption by reference to the motion for new trial, it sets out in division two of the opinion to really do some damage to Georgia precedent. Justice Carley starts out in the law of other states, finding that “the vast majority of federal and state appellate courts that have addressed this issue have adopted the aggregate approach, which requires a court to “compare the total original sentence to the total sentence after resentencing. [I]f the new sentence is greater that the original sentence, the new sentence is considered more severe.”

Some other States, he points out have adopted the “remainder aggregate” approach that compares “the district court’s aggregate sentence on the nonreversed counts after appeal with the original sentence imposed on those same counts before appeal”

Finally, Justice Carley points out that a few states have adopted what he calls the “pure count-by-count approach,” which requires that counts be considered separately. We find out in the minority opinion that Georgia, before this opinion came out, was once one of those states.

Without so much as a tip of the hat to our precedent, the majority points out that the aggregate approach is the one that is most pragmatic for the trial judge to use. Of course, convenience and practicality are not Constitutional principles (far from it). Yet, in response to the minority’s reasoning that mandatory sentencing and parole consideration may increase the net amount of time a defendant may serve under an aggregate scheme, he dismissively notes that such concerns are “not relevant as the statutes have no constitutional implications in that context.”

Turning back to the “practicalities” of the new rule, the majority reasons that there is “a minimal likelihood of vindictiveness.” Applying the law to the new facts, the majority points out that, in the aggregate, the defendant received 50 years to serve rather than the initial 60 even if he got more time than before on one count. He calls this sentence “significantly less severe,” which might be the case if the defendant were Highlander.

More Stuff to Think About

This has become a very fractured Court. Since Georgia became a one-party system, the Court has changed. The new guard is not particularly a slave to principles of stare decisis. Though the court is a more exciting place — oral argument is certainly more fun there than it’s ever been — it’s also tougher to practice law. Trial lawyers cannot easily advise clients based upon the law when even settled law may not be settled. Also, it is likely going to become more difficult to use precedent to convince trial judges of what the law requires when so much precedent is a moving target.

Passing of Former Chief Justice of Georgia Supreme Court

July 11, 2010/by J. Scott Key

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reports that Harold Nelson Hill, Jr., former Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice, passed away at his lake home on July 5. Senior U.S. District Court Judge Willis Hunt called him “a stellar member of the Supreme Court.” Justice Hill began serving on the Supreme Court in 1975 and served as its chief from 1982 until 1986. He wrote a history of the Supreme Court and chaired a judiciary committee in 1984 that established uniform court rules for the state’s five trial courts. Judge Stephanie Manis, who clerked for him early in her career described him as “very formal and scholarly.” She went on to credit him for giving many luminaries in the bar and bench their start.

However, it was a bit strange that, with his death taking place on July 5, the AJC was so late reporting his death. Also, I cannot remember reading any of Chief Justice Hill’s opinions. A search of the internet shows nothing about him other than his obituary.

Then I looked up some of his old cases. It turns out that he was very accomplished. In 1972, he was an executive assistant attorney general who signed onto the brief of Appellee in Furman v. Georgia, the case that briefly held that death by electrocution was cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment. He worked on a set of big cases in the early 1970s before going onto the Court and authoring many opinions there.

The Georgia Supreme Court’s website mentions nothing about his passing.

Sometimes, when you are so focused in your own work before the Court, you lose sight of all the stories that accompany all the portraits in the courtroom. This obituary made me look up the career of a very significant man in the Court’s recent history. It makes me wonder what the other stories are and what my story in the law will be.

Jamie Weis Appeal Puts Georgia’s Criminal Justice System on Trial

July 7, 2010/by J. Scott Key

Adam Liptak’s recent editoria l in the New York Times will provide comfort for those of us who have watched the legislature and governor gut indigent defense in Georgia and attack the judiciary systematically. At the same time, it is a little embarrassing to read about the system that I love so much and wonder what the rest of the world must think of us. Reading national press on Georgia during the civil rights movement must have been like this. At the same time, the heroes in this story, such as those with the Southern Center for Human Rights are Georgia appellate lawyers working to make a difference. So, there’s a good bit to be proud of, too.

In fact, the Jamie Weis story demonstrates the difference appellate lawyers can make for the client and to the very system that has so far undermined him. It makes me proud to be a Georgia criminal appellate lawyer.

So, in case you missed it, here’s the story. Jamie Weis was indicted for murder in the Griffin Judicial Circuit. He has been in jail awaiting trial since 2006. August of that year, he was noticed with the intent to seek the death penalty. By March, 2007, the lawyers who had represented him for the beginning couldn’t get any more money to fund the defense. The State has adequate funding to try to convince a jury to kill Mr. Weis. But when the money ran out, the prosecutors were allowed to pick their opponent. They convinced Judge Caldwell — yep, that Judge Caldwell — to replace the lawyers with salaried public defenders. On its way to issuing a 4-3 Decision (PDF) determining that it was okay to substitute cheaper lawyers chosen by the State, one of the justices suggested at oral argument that defense counsel should work for free. He never suggested that the judge or prosecutor should work for free.

The damage has continued. Recently the Court dodged a similar challenge out of Cobb County, Phan v. State (PDF) where it had another opportunity to declare that indigent defense in Georgia is broken. They punted the case back to the trial court to make a determination that it had already made. Phan is to Weis what those two little girls are to each other in the Overlook Hotel in The Shining — not quite identical but really disturbing.

But there is hope in the combination of Georgia Appellate Lawyers, the U.S. Supreme Court, and recent media attention. Hopefully, all of those forces can overcome the other two branches of government in the Georgia political establishment (see the reference to the girls from The Shining).