Allen v. State, 296 Ga. 785

Background

Miles Allen participated in an attack on Carlnell Walker during which Walker was beaten, stabbed, bound, gagged, placed in his car trunk, and left to die; Walker died of hyperthermia in the trunk. Allen’s bloody palm print and blood-stained jeans tied him to the scene.
Co-defendant Theodore Holliman testified for the State; Allen testified he joined the attack out of fear of co-defendant Keith Roberts.
Allen was convicted of malice murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and related counts; he was sentenced to life for malice murder and additional prison terms on other counts. One felony-murder count was moot because Allen was sentenced on malice murder instead.
On appeal Allen raised multiple grounds: sufficiency as to a now-moot count, juror challenge, alleged gag-order violation, trial statements by detectives (including a marijuana remark), confrontation clause and co-conspirator/confession arguments, judicial comment about autopsy photos, expert qualification, exclusion of psychiatric evidence for coercion, jury instructions on coercion/justification, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed, rejecting Allen’s claims for mistrial, evidentiary error, confrontation violations, improper judicial comment, and ineffective assistance.

Issues

Issue	Allen's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of felony-murder (armed robbery) count	Evidence insufficient for Count 3	Verdicts supported by the evidence; malice murder conviction controls	Count moot because sentenced for malice murder; remaining convictions supported by Jackson v. Virginia standard
Failure to strike prospective juror for cause	Juror was a U.S. Marshal/corrections officer with arrest powers and should be excused	Juror was a federal corrections officer (not a sworn officer with arrest power); no record showing disqualifying status	No error; striking for cause not required without proof juror had arrest powers
Mistrial for alleged gag-order violation (newspaper article)	Chief prosecutor violated gag order; mistrial required	No evidence jurors saw article; article repeated trial evidence; presumption jurors follow instructions	Denied; no showing juror exposure or prejudice
Mistrial for detective's marijuana remark in recorded interview	Comment improperly impugned character; required mistrial	Statement inadvertent; court gave curative instruction and jurors able to follow it	Denied; curative instruction sufficient to cure incidental character reference
Detectives’ statements implying others implicated Allen (Confrontation Clause)	Statements placed testimonial co-conspirator statements before jury without cross-examination	Statements were interrogation techniques, not offered for truth; not confessions; not testimonial	No confrontation violation; statements not admitted for truth and contained no substance of others’ statements
Admission of autopsy photographs & alleged judicial coaching	Court’s comments coached State and violated OCGA § 17-8-57	Court merely restated prior ruling and required witness foundation; photos admissible if assist testimony	No plain error; remarks not an expression of opinion and photos properly admitted
Qualification of crime-scene investigator to testify on blood-pattern analysis	Investigator not sufficiently qualified as an expert	Investigator had 18 years’ experience and training; expertise may be experiential	Trial court did not abuse discretion in qualifying witness as expert
Exclusion of psychiatrist evidence for coercion defense	Psychiatrist would show Allen is unusually suggestible; relevant to coercion defense	Discovery violation and evidence irrelevant because coercion is judged by reasonable person standard	Exclusion upheld: evidence not relevant to statutory coercion defense; trial court within bounds
Jury instructions on coercion/justification	Court should have instructed coercion applies to underlying felonies and given omnibus justification instruction	No requested written charge; felony-murder/underlying counts moot; evidence did not support omnibus justification	No error: failure to give unrequested instruction not reversible; omnibus justification unsupported by evidence
Ineffective assistance for failing to get juror struck for cause	Counsel deficient for not striking juror; prejudice resulted	No evidence juror was disqualifying; cannot show prejudice required by Strickland	Denied: no deficient prejudice—no showing juror could be struck for cause

Key Cases Cited

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency of the evidence)
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (limits on use of testimonial statements under Confrontation Clause)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective assistance standard)
Bostic v. State, 294 Ga. 845 (mootness where sentenced on different count)
Nelms v. State, 285 Ga. 718 (presumption jurors follow instructions)
Bunnell v. State, 292 Ga. 253 (curative instructions for improper character references)
Williams v. State, 279 Ga. 731 (expert qualification, experience-based expertise)
Thompson v. State, 295 Ga. 96 (exclusion of diminished-mental-condition evidence when not within enumerated defenses)
Gravitt v. State, 279 Ga. 33 (scope of omnibus justification defense)
Geiger v. State, 295 Ga. 648 (ineffective assistance; showing prejudice when no ground to strike juror)