Keener v. State, 301 Ga. 848

David William Keener was indicted for multiple offenses arising from three separate assaults; convictions at two severed trials involved victims Steven Yearwood and Randall Huling.
Yearwood trial: witnesses saw Keener repeatedly kick Yearwood in the face; Yearwood sustained serious injuries; Keener claimed self-defense and was convicted of two counts of aggravated battery.
Huling trial: witnesses (notably Pestos Charlie) observed Keener assault Huling, repeatedly slamming his head into a guardrail; Huling later died from blunt force head trauma. Keener was convicted of felony murder and related counts.
At trial the State presented a jailhouse admission by Keener and eyewitness testimony; Keener presented a forensic expert who opined the injuries were caused by a fall.
Keener moved for a new trial alleging (1) ineffective assistance for failing to impeach Charlie with prior inconsistent recorded statements, and (2) that the trial court applied the wrong standard in denying a motion for new trial on weight-of-the-evidence grounds. The trial court denied relief and this appeal followed.

Issue	Keener's Argument	State's Argument	Held
1. Ineffective assistance — failure to impeach witness with prior recorded statements	Counsel was deficient for not using Charlie’s recorded interview to impeach his trial testimony	Counsel’s performance was reasonable given the recording was muddled and cross-examination already highlighted key inconsistencies; no prejudice shown	Denied — counsel not constitutionally ineffective under Strickland
2. Whether prior-recorded statements contradicted trial testimony sufficiently to require impeachment	The recording contained inconsistencies about Huling’s description and assault details that would have undermined credibility	Recording was unclear, possibly referring to another person, and did not clearly contradict trial testimony	Denied — recording was ambiguous and did not compel impeachment
3. Prejudice prong under Strickland	Had counsel impeached Charlie, outcome probably different	No reasonable probability of different outcome given other evidence and effective cross-examination	Denied — no reasonable probability to undermine confidence in verdicts
4. Motion for new trial — whether trial court applied correct weight-of-evidence standard	Trial court only reviewed sufficiency (Jackson) rather than exercising discretion to weigh evidence	Trial court recited and weighed evidence and properly exercised discretion; it did not merely conduct a sufficiency review	Denied — trial court applied proper weight-of-evidence analysis

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (applies legal-sufficiency standard for convictions)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective assistance two-prong test: performance and prejudice)
Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86 (deference to counsel performance; strong presumption of effectiveness)
Romer v. State, 293 Ga. 339 (objective standard for counsel performance)
Terry v. State, 284 Ga. 119 (reciting Strickland standard in Georgia context)
Arnold v. State, 292 Ga. 268 (definition of reasonable probability for prejudice)
Brown v. State, 288 Ga. 902 (tactical decisions and ineffective assistance review)
Shaw v. State, 292 Ga. 871 (hindsight has no place in assessing counsel performance)
Walker v. State, 292 Ga. 262 (trial court’s duty to weigh evidence on motion for new trial)