Cordova v. the State, 297 Ga. 26

David Cordova was indicted (1997) for 1995 malice murder, armed robbery, and kidnapping with bodily injury; the State filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty.
Cordova entered negotiated guilty pleas to all three counts in May 1999 and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on each count (sentences to run concurrently with each other and with a federal sentence).
The Georgia Sentence Review Panel declined jurisdiction to review the sentences in 1999.
In 2014 Cordova filed a pro se motion to vacate his sentences as void, arguing the sentencing judge failed to make the contemporaneous, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt finding of a statutory aggravating circumstance required by former OCGA § 17-10-32.1(b).
The Supreme Court of Georgia examined the statute as it existed at sentencing, which required a specific contemporaneous finding of at least one statutory aggravating circumstance to impose life without parole when the State had sought death.
The Court found the trial court did not make the required contemporaneous finding; thus the life-without-parole sentences were void and must be vacated, and remanded for resentencing consistent with the statute and precedent.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether life-without-parole sentences entered after guilty pleas are valid when the sentencing judge did not contemporaneously find a statutory aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt	Cordova: sentences are void because the judge failed to make the statutory contemporaneous aggravating-circumstance finding required by former OCGA § 17-10-32.1(b)	State: (implicit) sentences should stand despite lack of contemporaneous explicit finding given the guilty pleas and negotiated disposition	The Court held the sentences are void; vacated them and remanded for resentencing compliant with former OCGA § 17-10-32.1(b)

Pierce v. State, 289 Ga. 893 (Court requires strict construction of sentencing statute; contemporaneous finding of aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt is required to impose life without parole)
Hughes v. State, 269 Ga. 819 (same principle that construes the statute strictly against the State)