Marshall v. State, 299 Ga. 825

On Nov. 18, 2008, several armed men forced entry into Joshua Scott’s home; a shootout ensued and Scott was killed. A safe with cash and large quantities of cocaine and marijuana was found.
Dijuan Marshall (appellant) participated in the home invasion with co-defendants; eyewitnesses and co-participants (Mayers, Slade, Brooks, Thornton) implicated him. Slade and Mayers gave recorded pretrial statements and later testified pursuant to plea deals.
At trial (May 2010, joint with Thornton), Marshall was convicted of three counts of felony murder (not malice murder), aggravated assault, attempted armed robbery, burglary, possession of a firearm during a felony, and conspiracy; sentenced to life plus additional years. Some sentencing mergers were later recognized by the trial court.
Marshall moved for a new trial alleging ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to (1) admission/playback of recorded pretrial statements of Slade and Mayers and (2) Detective Pritchett’s testimony recounting hearsay statements from Slade’s mother, appellant’s brother, and appellant’s mother.
At the new-trial hearing, trial counsel testified that he declined to object to the recordings as a strategic choice to use them for impeachment; the recordings and other evidence tied "TJ" to Marshall and established his participation.
The trial court denied the motion for new trial (but merged burglary and conspiracy for sentencing); the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether evidence was sufficient for convictions	Marshall argued issues elsewhere but did not directly challenge sufficiency	State argued evidence (participation, recorded statements, co-defendant testimony) supported convictions	Court: Evidence was sufficient to support convictions under Jackson v. Virginia
Ineffective assistance for failing to object to playback of recorded pretrial statements	Marshall: counsel should have objected; recordings were inadmissible or prejudicial	Counsel: strategic decision to use recordings to impeach witnesses; recordings hurt witnesses’ credibility	Court: Counsel’s choice was reasonable trial strategy; no deficient performance
Ineffective assistance for failing to object to hearsay recounted by Detective Pritchett	Marshall: counsel’s failure to object to hearsay (mother’s phone call, brother ID, mother’s statement) was ineffective	State: statements were cumulative to other strong evidence identifying Marshall and participation	Court: Any hearsay error was not prejudicial because cumulative; ineffectiveness claim fails
Sentencing merger and procedural posture	Marshall sought relief on sentencing/appeal timeliness (out-of-time appeal)	State noted appeal was granted and trial court merged counts as appropriate	Court: Affirmed convictions; trial court correctly merged burglary and conspiracy for sentencing

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (sufficiency of the evidence standard)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective-assistance two-prong test)
Romer v. State, 293 Ga. 339 (deference to reasonable trial strategy)
Wesley v. State, 286 Ga. 355 (application of Strickland in Georgia)
Johnson v. State, 294 Ga. 86 (decisions to forgo objections can be reasonable strategy)
Green v. State, 291 Ga. 579 (no need to analyze both Strickland prongs if one fails; counsel strategy inference)
Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369 (sentencing merger principles)