State of Georgia v. S.C. - Superior Court of Heard County

This young man was charged with kidnap, false imprisonment, mutiny in a penal institution, robbery, attempted theft by taking, battery, and escape.
Basically, a couple of other men decided to break out of the jail, took the keys from an elderly jailer, locked the jailer in their cell, and unlocked our client's
cell door so he could follow them. They did make it to the jail parking lot before a deputy spotted them, but they were all captured shortly thereafter.

The state prosecuted our client under a "party to the crime" theory. We argued to the jury that they should find him guilty of what he did (misdemeanor escape)
and not guilty of what he did not do. They agreed after less than an hour of deliberation. The judge sentenced our client to twelve months to serve, the maximum
allowed by law, but gave credit for time served pending trial. After deciding to give him two-for-one credit, which is common on misdemeanors in Georgia, the sheriff released him from this sentence two days later.

State of Georgia v. C.E.H.

This gentleman was charged with aggravated assault, malice murder, and felony murder after shooting a neighbor. The state's "eyewitness" testified that our client simply walked across the street, pulled out a revolver, and shot the "victim." However, the owner of the house where the "eyewitness" was visiting told the jury that they were watching television when they heard the gunshot so the "eyewitness" could not have seen what she claimed to have seen.

Our client testified that he took a bag of tomatoes to a wheelchair-bound man who lived on one side of a duplex. When he left, the "victim" rushed at him in a rage with his hand behind his back. Being fearful for his life, our client shot him. During the trial we established that the "victim" regularly carried knives, including a machete, had threatened other individuals with knives, and had prior convictions for armed robbery and aggravated assault.  The jury deliberated for less than four hours before returning a "not guilty" verdict on all counts.

T.F. v. State of Georgia - Supreme Court of Georgia

The defendant was the driver of a van involved in an accident that resulted in her passenger sustaining a broken hip.  At that time Georgia's Implied Consent Law authorized testing of a driver's blood, urine, breath, or other bodily substances to determine if the driver was under the influence of alcohol or drugs without probable cause to believe that the driver was under the influence. A test of our client's blood and urine revealed the presence of cocaine metabolites.

Following her conviction for DUI-drugs and Serious Injury by Vehicle, we appealed her convictions to the Supreme Court of Georgia, challenging the constitutionality of the statute. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed her conviction and held that a search of a person's blood or urine without probable cause violates both State and Federal constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. Therefore, that section of the Implied Consent Law was unconstitutional.

We filed this appeal in June, 2003, and the decision was rendered in November. The Supreme Court had struck down the same law in October in another, similar case. Therefore, we cannot take all the credit, but we were aware of the issue and raised it long before the other case was decided in October.

S.W.C. v. State of Georgia - Georgia Court of Appeals

The defendant was sentenced to serve 28 years on two counts of felony vehicular homicide following a jury trial. He was also convicted of two counts of driving under the influence of drugs, specifically amphetamine and methamphetamine, and a couple of other minor offenses. We did not represent him at trial but handled his appeal.

The Court of Appeals reversed his convictions on the felony vehicular homicide and DUI charges. We did not appeal the non-drug-related convictions on two counts of homicide by vehicle in the second degree, one count of failure to obey a traffic signal, and one count of giving a false name to a law enforcement officer.

On appeal we contended that the client received ineffective assistance of counsel because his lawyer did not move to suppress the results of blood and urine tests showing methamphetamine and amphetamine in his system at the time his truck crashed into another vehicle, killing two people therein.

Specifically, we argued that the undisputed record showed that he was coerced into taking the blood and urine tests, and that his trial counsel wholly failed to argue this point. After police arrived at the scene of the accident our client was given the implied consent warning and refused to give consent. Police threatened to obtain a search warrant and to forcibly use a catheter to obtain the samples if he did not give consent. In the face of this threat, he finally consented. Subsequent analysis of the defendant's blood and urine showed that both contained amphetamine and methamphetamine.

By statute, the legislature has granted drivers the right to refuse to take a State-administered test. The consequence of exercising this right is that the evidence of the refusal is admissible in the driver's criminal trial and that the State may suspend the person's driver's license. Contrary to the police's representation to Collier, the consequence of refusing is not that the police may then obtain a search warrant and forcibly conduct the tests.

The Court of Appeals held that by threatening our client with forcible testing, the police misled him about the consequences of refusing to consent to the requested tests. Therefore, his trial attorney's failure to contest this evidence was deficient, and his convictions were reversed.

UPDATE: On April 26, 2005, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the decision of the Court of Appeals, which reversed the client's convictions for felony vehicular homicide (homicide by vehicle) and driving under the influence of drugs.  At the time his tentative parole date was June, 2025, so our efforts saved him at least twenty years in prison.

State of Georgia v. S.W.

The Defendant was charged with Theft by Taking. The State claimed that this K-Mart employee had disconnected an alarm on an emergency exit by taping the magnet attached to the door to the magnet attached to the door frame and then unscrewing the magnet attached to the door so it would remain in contact with the other even when the door was open. He was a night worker, and a pile of merchandise was found outside when the morning manager patrolled the parking lot at 6:00 A.M. Our client’s fingerprints were found on the tape that held the lower magnet in place. We emphasized that two suspicious individuals had been spotted in the stockroom the night before the theft, they had not left the store through the front or side doors that were guarded by K-Mart employees, they had not set off an alarm by leaving through any other exit, and the police and the manager who searched the store had not found them. This jury deliberated for slightly more than an hour before returning a verdict of not guilty.

State of Georgia v. K.P.

The Defendant was accused of arson and murder arising from the death of a woman whose husband had been having an affair with the Defendant. She and the husband were alleged to have set the decedent’s home on fire following an argument between the decedent and her husband. The State’s scientific evidence showing that there was a flammable liquid in the Defendant’s clothing had one minor defect: The flammable liquid was a component of the glue used to hold her tennis shoes together. Our arson expert also testified that there were no pour patterns, and we vigorously attacked the State’s time line. Following an eight-day trial the jury deliberated for two hours before returning a verdict of “Not guilty” on all charges.

State of Georgia v. W.L.B.

The Defendant was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Two eyewitnesses testified that they saw him point the gun at another man and fire two rounds. Careful cross-examination brought out inconsistencies in their statements, and the crime lab technician testified that he could not tell for sure if the bullets fired came from the gun recovered at the Defendant’s residence or not. The jury acquitted the Defendant after deliberating for two hours and forty-five minutes.

State of Georgia v. R.W.

Our client was charged with possession of drugs after contraband was found in his shoe during a traffic stop. We contended that he should have been allowed to leave after the reason for the traffic stop had been dealt with and that the continuing investigatory detention of the client violated his 4th amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. The trial court agreed and suppressed the drugs, which means that the charge was dismissed.

State of Georgia v. A.M.

The trial judge overruled our motion to suppress cocaine seized after a traffic stop. However, we were successful when the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling. Our client was a passenger in a truck stopped for a traffic infraction. The officer asked the driver for permission to search the vehicle three times before she agreed. Before actually looking in the truck, the officer conducted a patdown search of our client, ostensibly to look for weapons. The Court of Appeals agreed with our contention that in order to conduct a patdown search for weapons an officer must have a reasonable, articulable suspicion to believe that an individual is armed and presents a danger to the officer or others. Here there was no evidence that the officer harbored such a reasonable belief; in fact, he admitted that he pats down people whenever he searches a motor vehicle. Therefore, the Court of Appeals ruled the the cocaine must be suppressed, which means the end of this case for our client.