New trial ordered for woman convicted of killing her husband

Credit to Savannah Morning News, 9 May 2005:

Edith Tillyne Sammons was convicted of murder in Bulloch County in the July 1998 shooting death of husband Gregory. The court ruled that she should have been present when the trial judge excused a juror.

A woman convicted of killing her husband has been granted a new trial because the judge met privately with a juror who was excused.

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that Edith Tillyne Sammons should have been present when the presiding judge met with and excused a black juror, who expressed discomfort with the issues of race and sex in the case.

Nevertheless, the state's highest court concluded the Bulloch County Superior Court jury wasn't wrong in its verdict.

"After reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's determination of guilt, we conclude that any rational trier of fact could have found Sammons guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which she was convicted," wrote Chief Justice Norman Fletcher for the court.

But Fletcher notes that the law requires that defendants be present for all critical stages in the court proceedings.

Sammons' husband Gregory was shot and run over July 8, 1998 after he had filed for divorce. She contends he attacked her when she stopped on the side of the road with car trouble while they were heading to a counseling session with their pastor.

Prosecutors argued that she had an affair with her son's black friend who was living in the family home, and that she staged the killing and wounds to make it appear her husband had attacked her.

After the judge replaced one of the two black jurors with an alternate, the 12 convicted Sammons, who was then sentenced to life imprisonment.

In her appeal, Sammons says she did not agree to give up her right to be present when the juror was questioned and that she didn't want the juror replaced, but her attorney at the time never objected.

"Because Sammons was absent from a critical part of the trial and she did not acquiesce in the removal of a juror outside her presence, the judgment must be reversed and remanded for a new trial," Fletcher wrote.

Hearing Thursday on Lanier discharge

14 Apr 2005, credit to Stacy Shelton of the AJC:

The public will have a chance to comment Thursday night on state plans to allow Gwinnett County to discharge up to 40 million gallons a day of treated wastewater into Lake Lanier.

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division is holding a hearing on the proposed discharge permit at 7 p.m. in room 5 at the Gwinnett Center on Sugarloaf Parkway in Duluth.

This would be the second permit issued by the EPD to Gwinnett to discharge into the lake. The Georgia Supreme Court rejected the first permit, noting that the county's state-of-the-art sewage treatment plant is capable of removing more pollutants from the wastewater than would have been required.

With vot(ing) in November (for judge seats), accountability wins

3 Apr 2005, great credit to J. Randolph Evans writing in the AJC. J. Randolph Evans is an Atlanta attorney and a member of the state elections board. Reproduced in full:

Amid the fraud prevention controversy, one of the most significant provisions in the Legislature's election reform package — shifting judicial candidates from the primary to the general election ballot — went largely unnoticed. All but ignored by the media and activists, this change represents an important step toward increasing judicial accountability.

Prior to the change, judicial elections were held in conjunction with partisan primary elections in the middle of summer, where only 14 percent to 18 percent of the electorate chose members of Georgia's courts, including the Supreme Court. Recently, the Terri Schiavo case, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and death penalty cases have moved both federal and state judiciaries from the shadows of American government. Yet, Georgia election laws shielded the state's judiciary from the political spotlight of the November general election, when other high-ranking government officials face the voters.

Under the new law, judicial races will appear on the general election ballot in November, where roughly 65 percent to 75 percent of the state's registered voters will likely participate. The resulting change will as much as triple the number of voters who choose Georgia's judges, including those to the Georgia Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. Not only will there be more voters participating in the election of Georgia judges, the heightened voter interest and corresponding media attention that are part and parcel of the general election season will guarantee a more informed electorate.

Why is this change so significant and important? In short, if the purpose of electing judges is accountability, then real accountability is best served by electing judges with the largest and most informed electorate possible. Recently, when the executive and legislative branches lost touch with a majority of Georgians, they were held accountable. The rest of Georgia's state government was rapidly transformed in four short years as voters ousted increasingly liberal incumbents and replaced them with conservative candidates. Under the Georgia Constitution, there is no reason why the judicial branch should be any different.

Sadly, the old system minimized the chances that a majority of Georgians would be heard in judicial elections. The result has been a static judiciary largely loyal to governors from a time that has come and gone.

For example, in our Supreme Court, Georgia has not seated a single new justice in the past decade, with average tenure running well over 10 years. Our one retiring justice was appointed more than 15 years ago. There are judges serving in 2005 who were first appointed more than a quarter of a century ago. Based on past turnover of justices and judges, it would take more than two decades under the old law for the judicial branch to begin reflecting changes that have occurred in the other branches of state government in recent elections.

Increasingly, with continuing reports of activist judges, voters want more accountability from the courts, not less. Yet, holding elections at a time of minimal voter participation creates a static system. The current timing makes judicial elections an insider's game, where incumbents stay in office so reliably that few challengers even bother to run against them.

In the 2004 elections, significantly less than 10 percent of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and Superior Court elections in Georgia featured meaningful competition. Even worse, well over 80 percent of the judges in these races faced no competition at all.

Critics of making our system more accountable take the elitist position that judges should not face the inconvenience of actually running for re-election. Competitive judicial elections, they argue, would threaten the very integrity of our system. Basically, they do not trust Georgia voters to be able to determine good judges from bad, or bought judges from honest ones. They believe that they know better than the people.

Fortunately, voters are actually smarter than critics give them credit for being. And there is a veritable army of attorneys, journalists, commissions, academics and activists who closely watch judges for the slightest sign of unethical conduct. Of course, the increased scrutiny associated with November elections only increases that supervision. Moving judicial elections from the obscurity of midsummer partisan primaries to the light of November elections will dramatically maximize accountability, not diminish it.

Georgia has good judges. And, most would have very little to fear from heightened voter participation and greater media scrutiny. But for the handful who decide to legislate rather than decide, or veer from the most basic norms of a civilized society, higher scrutiny and better voter participation will serve as the missing measure of accountability under the old system.

Accountability is the reason we elect judges in the first place. It is long past time those elections were moved from the shadows of the electoral process into the light of a new day in Georgia.

Hear, hear!

U.S. Supreme Court accepts Georgia 4th amendment case

19 Apr 2005, credit Michael McGough,Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

In other business yesterday, the (U.S. Supreme) (C)ourt:
...
Said it would decide whether a property occupied by two residents can be searched with the permission of only one. The justices will review a ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they searched a home for cocaine with the approval of a woman who said her husband was using the drug.

Teen Rejects Plea, Gets 10 Years

18 Apr 2005, credit Kevin Rowson of 11 Alive, WXIA-TV:

A teenaged boy rejected a last-minute plea deal and received a sentence of 10 years in prison Monday for a consensual sex act with a 15-year-old girl in Douglas County.

The conviction of Janorlo Wilson has drawn protests over Georgia's child protective laws and parallels to another high-profile case that resulted in the same mandatory sentence.
...
In a similar case in Rome last year, star high school athlete Marcus Dixon received the same 10-year sentence for having intercourse with a 15-year-old girl. Dixon's case went to the Georgia Supreme Court, which overturned his sentence. Dixon is now free.

First of Olympic Bombing Lawsuits Settled

26 Apr 2005, credit to the AP:

ATLANTA -- A woman injured in the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics has settled her lawsuit against the event's organizing committee, her lawyer said.
...
A ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court last year allowed bombing victims to sue the organizers of the Olympics. Although court papers said (Eric) Rudolph is destitute, the committee has a $100 million insurance policy, Sadd said. The victims argue that inadequate security contributed to the tragedy.

Georgia Supreme Court curtails the ability of police to collect evidence of drug and alcohol use by drivers involved in serious auto accidents

26 Apr 2005, credit to Bill Rankin of the AJC:

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday curtailed the ability of police to collect evidence of drug and alcohol use by drivers involved in serious auto accidents.
In a unanimous ruling, the court held that once a driver declines to give a blood and urine sample under the state's "implied consent" law, police cannot obtain a search warrant to force the driver to submit to the test.

"The statute plainly requires that if an individual does not consent to the designated chemical test, then no test is to be administered," Justice Harris Hines wrote for a unanimous court.

Under the implied consent law, people who refuse to give a blood or urine sample can have their driver's licenses suspended for a year. Their refusal to take the test also can be used as evidence against them at trial.

But these penalties "do not include being compelled to submit to testing through the use of a search warrant," Hines wrote. "Otherwise, the right of refusal under the implied consent law would be rendered meaningless."

The ruling threw out two vehicular homicide convictions — and a 28-year prison sentence — against a Carroll County man accused of running a stop light and killing Inez Billingsley, 54, and her six-year-old grandson, Angelo Sykes. Billingsley was driving Angelo to school on the morning of Sept. 13, 1999. The defendant, Steven William Collier, 34, tested positive for amphetamine and methamphetamine.

Ban on obscene phone calls ruled unconstitutional by Georgia Supreme Court

26 Apr 2005, credit to Bill Rankin of the AJC:

The Georgia Supreme Court today ruled unconstitutional a state law that makes it a crime to carry on obscene and indecent conversations over the telephone.

In a unanimous ruling, the court threw out two misdemeanor convictions against Anthony McKenzie, a 17-year-old from Cumming who made a series of collect phone calls in 2003 from the Forsyth County jail to a 14-year-old girl he had recently met over the Internet.

The state law, passed by the General Assembly almost 40 years ago, imposes a ban on obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy and indecent comments, suggestions and proposals made during telephone conversations.

In striking down the statute, the state Supreme Court called the law "an overbroad infringement on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech." The law fails to use the least restrictive means of curtailing such a right, the court said.

"Instead of applying only to obscene speech, it applies to speech that is merely indecent," Justice Robert Benham wrote for the court. "Instead of making illegal such speech only when directed at minors, it makes such speech illegal when heard by adults."

The law can be applied to speech that is unwelcome to the person on the other end of the phone line and can also be applied "to speech welcomed by the listener and spoken with intent to amuse," Benham wrote.

Kerry invites the press to "talk to" Dick Cheney's daughter

Here is an easy and direct thing that is wrong with John Kerry's debate answer that brought up Mary Cheney. Kerry said "I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter..." Oh yeah, when did she volunteer her availability as a spokeswoman for her father, her father's boss, the BC04 campaign, or for John Kerry for that matter? What right does Kerry have to drag a non-participant, a non-public person into the glaring national spotlight? On a very personal subject?!

This is wrong and most folks easily understand that this is wrong. The impact of this will be real.

Our presidents and presidential candidates know that they give up virtually all privacy (with the exception of Kerry's full military record, his full medical record, his full Intelligence Committee attendance record, and the full tax returns of the only tax filer who counts in his family). The same is true of their wives, who are understood to have a veto on presidential ambitions because of, among other things, this huge impact on the privacy of the wives' lives.

Any campaign for the American presidency is a grueling, intense, intrusive, and usually a somewhat embarrassing enterprise. Family members volunteer for or opt out of these campaigns because of the nature of them. Choosing to go out front and speak on behalf of a campaign is a big deal.

Remember the recent hoopla when the Bush daughters joined the Bush campaign -- all of the press carried the story as real news. And the following days have seen them speaking and being photographed and interviewed; and their participation has allowed the news media to carry new mentions of their past peccadilloes. (see here)

Mary Cheney has an operational job in her father's campaign office. She is not part of the often brutal give and take of the presidential campaigns. She has an expectation of privacy and American political candidates have respected that privacy by not inserting an opponent's non-participating family members into the political dialogue.

So, how many reporters have called up the Veep's campaign office in the last two days to "talk to" Mary Cheney about the question Kerry lobbed into play? Well, okay, maybe most are ignoring the story because it doesn't look to help their guy. Ah, but they've thought about how to question her and how to write the story so that it would help their guy.

With respect to Hugh Hewitt's symposium question here, the hole they (the whole crew) have dug is at least 5 precious days deep. Kerry stammered did it out late Wednesday night, upset built on Thursday, Kerry was questioned today on it in Iowa, maybe SNL Saturday night, the subject will definitely play on some Sunday morning shows, and will still be hanging on Monday through talk radio.

It will fade from the news then, but the "say and do anything" impression will be set for many voters. 5 days on the defensive -- how many does Kerry have left?

p.s. Kerry said today, speaking of Dick and Lynne Cheney and their daughter's orientation/preference, "They don't raise questions." That's for him to do!

Achewood - July 9, 2004

Achewood - July 9, 2004

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