Lamb v. the State, 341 Ga. App. 245

Raymond Lamb pled guilty in Dec. 2013 to child molestation and incest and received a total 35-year sentence, with 18 years to be served in confinement.
Lamb filed a pro se motion for an out-of-time appeal claiming (1) his plea was not knowing/voluntary because he was on psychotropic medication at the plea hearing, and (2) plea counsel was ineffective for failing to raise his diminished mental capacity.
At the plea hearing the court asked Lamb about medication; Lamb admitted taking Paxil and a sleep medication but told the court he was thinking clearly and understood the proceedings. The court accepted the plea after colloquy.
The trial court denied Lamb’s motion for an out-of-time appeal; Lamb appealed that denial.
The Court of Appeals reviewed whether Lamb’s claimed defects could be resolved from the existing record (the standard for allowing a direct/out-of-time appeal after a guilty plea).
The State conceded, and the court held, that Lamb’s 25-year child-molestation sentence exceeded the statutory maximum and vacated that sentence and remanded for resentencing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether plea was knowing/voluntary due to medication	Lamb: psychotropic meds impaired his ability to enter a knowing, voluntary plea	State: plea colloquy shows he understood and was lucid; record resolves issue	Court: Held plea was knowing/voluntary; medication claim resolved by record and fails
Whether ineffective assistance of counsel (failure to raise diminished capacity)	Lamb: plea counsel should have alerted court to his diminished mental faculties	State: such claims cannot be resolved on the record of a plea and must be litigated post-plea	Court: Held claim not reviewable on direct/out-of-time appeal; must be raised via habeas or post-plea proceedings
Availability of out-of-time appeal after guilty plea	Lamb: sought out-of-time appeal to raise above claims	State: out-of-time appeal available only if issues can be resolved from the existing record	Court: Applied standard; medication issue reviewable and denied on merits; ineffectiveness/competency not reviewable here
Sentence legality	Lamb: (implicit) challenge to sentence length	State: conceded child-molestation term exceeded statutory maximum	Court: Vacated child-molestation sentence and remanded for resentencing in accordance with statute

Smith v. State, 335 Ga. App. 639 (standard: out-of-time appeal after guilty plea available only if issues resolvable from record)
Kennedy v. State, 319 Ga. App. 498 (issues on appeal from guilty plea must be resolved from plea/sentence record)
Johnson v. State, 260 Ga. App. 897 (State bears burden to show plea was voluntary, knowing, intelligent via plea record)
Brown v. State, 259 Ga. App. 576 (defendant’s representations at colloquy can negate need for further inquiry about medication effects)
Lamb v. State, 282 Ga. App. 756 (ineffective-assistance claims after a guilty plea require post-plea development)
Gray v. State, 273 Ga. App. 441 (mental-competency issues cannot be resolved solely from plea record)
Wetherington v. State, 296 Ga. 451 (habeas corpus is appropriate forum to pursue counsel ineffectiveness after plea)