Lane v. State, 299 Ga. 787

On Jan. 5–6, 2005, 19-year-old Quentin Cooks took a .44 revolver from 15-year-old Shawn Powe and later shot and killed him; Cooks admitted taking the gun and later told his mother he shot Powe to protect his family.
Cooks was indicted on multiple counts including malice murder, two felony-murder counts, aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a firearm during a felony, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; trial occurred in April 2007 and jury convicted on all counts.
Trial court sentenced Cooks to life for malice murder and additional consecutive term for unlawful possession during a felony; the two felony-murder verdicts were vacated by operation of law and aggravated assault merged into malice murder.
The trial court also merged the felon-in-possession count into a vacated felony-murder count and therefore did not separately sentence Cooks on that felon-in-possession conviction.
Cooks appealed raising ineffective-assistance (failure to move to sever/bifurcate the felon-in-possession count), and trial-court evidentiary rulings excluding evidence of Powe’s alleged prior violent acts against third parties.

Issue	Cooks’s Argument	State’s Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence	Convictions unsupported? (Cooks does not dispute sufficiency)	Evidence was sufficient to convict	Affirmed — evidence legally sufficient under Jackson v. Virginia
Sentence for felon-in-possession count	Trial court failed to sentence on felon-in-possession by merging it into vacated felony murder; reversal or resentencing needed	Court acknowledged error in merging and agreed resentencing required	Vacated in part and remanded for sentencing on felon-in-possession count
Ineffective assistance for not seeking severance/bifurcation	Counsel deficient for not moving to bifurcate the felon-in-possession count, causing jury to learn of prior conviction; prejudiced outcome	Motion would have been meritless because felon-in-possession could underlie felony murder and malice murder charge made bifurcation inappropriate; failure to make meritless motion not deficient	Denied — no ineffective assistance; failure to file meritless motion not ineffective under Strickland
Exclusion of evidence of victim’s prior violent acts	Trial court wrongly barred evidence of specific violent acts by Powe against third parties that would support defense	Proffered evidence was not competent proof of specific third-party violent acts; defendant was allowed reputation/opinion evidence and other relevant testimony	Denied — exclusion proper under former Evidence Code/Chandler; defendant had opportunity to present reputation evidence

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (legal sufficiency standard) (1979)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective-assistance two-prong test) (1984)
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (ineffective-assistance standards in evidence contexts) (1986)
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (prejudice standard discussion) (2000)
Brown v. State, 295 Ga. 804 (bifurcation and felon-in-possession guidance) (2014)
Hulett v. State, 296 Ga. 49 (remand for sentencing when trial court mismerges vacated counts) (2014)
Moss v. State, 298 Ga. 613 (failure to make meritless motion not ineffective assistance) (2016)
Chandler v. State, 261 Ga. 402 (prior violent acts evidence under former Evidence Code) (1991)
Laster v. State, 268 Ga. 172 (requirement of competent proof for prior violent acts) (1997)
Jones v. State, 265 Ga. 138 (relation between malice murder and felony-murder/offense structure) (1995)
Lawler v. State, 276 Ga. 229 (mootness when evidence ruled admissible is not tendered) (2003)
Mohamud v. State, 297 Ga. 532 (clarifying new Evidence Code limits on specific bad-acts evidence of victim) (2015)
Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369 (merger of aggravated assault into malice murder) (1993)