Georgia Supreme Court - April 24 Opinions

In contrast to the Eleventh Circuit, which again issued no opinions today, the Georgia Supreme Court just released decisions in sixteen cases, summarized here.

First, in the world of "what not to do as a plaintiff," is McConnell v. Wright. The McConnells filed a personal injury (auto accident) suit in which State Farm ultimately was added as a defendant. Everything was fine until the McConnell's attorney withdrew, and meanwhile the McConnells were scheduled for their depositions -- and rescheduled, twice, while the McConnells sought new counsel. Apparently there was a miscommunication the third time when the McConnells updated State Farm on the status of their seeking counsel, but failed to show up for their deposition. The McConnells claim they assumed the deposition would be rescheduled when they updated State Farm. State Farm moved to dismiss as a sanction for failing to appear, and the trial court granted the motion -- without a hearing.

This latter point was the problem. Dismissal as a discovery sanction requires a showing of willfulness, and although the Georgia Supreme Court acknowledged precedent holding that a hearing may not be required in every case, under the facts of this case, a hearing was necessary to determine whether the McConnell's failure to appear was in fact willful.

As a practice pointer, if you're certain a jury will rule in your favor, and want to insulate against an appeal based on errors in the trial, just fail to have the jury trial taken down. Longstanding Georgia law, as cited in Harry v. Dale, holds that the appellate courts must presume the jury's verdict was supported in the absence of a transcript. (Of course, if you bet wrong, you're in trouble...).

Another example of Fulton County's problematic tax sale practices: Marathon Investment Corp. v. Spinkson. The subject property was an auxiliary parking lot used by Hills Avenue Baptist Church. It was sold in a tax sale without the church trustees ever knowing it -- until a year after the sale, the new owner of the land decided to take possession. Notably, the primary church parking lot was never taxed. So, why, you might ask, would an auxiliary church parking lot be subject to tax in the first place? That was exactly what the trustees thought, and this is why, when they never received any tax bills (because Fulton County was sending them to an address on Cascade Road at which neither the trustees, nor the pastor or any other past or present member of the church had ever lived), it did not strike them as odd. To make a long story short, the Georgia Supreme Court made clear that a church parking lot is exempt from taxation, and that considering the trustees had no notice of either the taxation or the tax sale, the tax sale was void.

Moving into the world of criminal cases, there were nine opinions in criminal cases and one in a habeas case. For the sake of brevity, I'll point out the more interesting issues.

In Gresham v. Edwards, the Georgia Supreme Court held that, although use of hearsay violates the confrontation clause at trial (see Crawford v. Washington), it does not create a similar problem when used against a defendant at a preliminary hearing.

In the category of "what does it take to get out of jury service?" in Tinsley v. State, the defendant appealed the trial court's dismissal of a potential juror who was (1) taking morphine twice daily for back pain, and had to stand up a couple times a day due to the back problems, (2) was manic depressive and on medication for that condition as well, and (3) stated he would not be able to concentrate on one thing for long periods of time. Wait, did you say this is a juror you wanted on your panel? (This case was consolidated with Stokes v. State and Hobdy v. State.) All convictions were affirmed.

If you're going to defend a friend who's a victim of a robbery, don't wait until after the robbery is over. This is the lesson of Roper v. State, where the defendant shot a guy who was just robbing a friend of Roper's. Roper heard about this, and witnessed the robbery, but inexplicably, Roper did not confront the robber immediately. Upon seeing the robber walking away from the scene, however, he jumped out at the guy and yelled "pull it," and then shot him. Roper claims he was acting in self-defense, knowing the victim had just robbed someone, and thinking he might be killed. Evidently the jury didn't buy it, because it convicted him.

The remainder of the criminal cases, Davis, Logan, Kimbrough, Boone and Waits (the latter being a heartbreaking child abuse involuntary manslaughter case), all of which affirm all or most of the defendants' convictions, can be found here. The Georgia Supreme Court also decided two divorce cases, Rieffal and Dyals, and accepted the voluntary surrender of the bar license of one Arthur Hurst English, convicted of three counts of felony theft by receiving. Locke v. U.S. Capital was affirmed without opinion.