McDonald v. State, 305 Ga. 5

In June 2002 Steve McDonald was convicted of malice murder, three counts of felony murder, armed robbery, false imprisonment, theft by taking, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
On direct appeal this Court affirmed the convictions but vacated the sentencing order to the extent it had merged certain verdicts into the malice murder verdict and directed the trial court to merge theft into armed robbery and impose lawful sentences on armed robbery and false imprisonment. McDonald v. State, 296 Ga. 643, 770 S.E.2d 6 (2015).
McDonald did not seek further review from the U.S. Supreme Court after the 2015 decision.
On remand (September 20, 2017) the trial court resentenced McDonald consistent with this Court’s instructions: life for armed robbery consecutive to malice murder, and ten years for false imprisonment concurrent with armed robbery; theft was merged into armed robbery. McDonald presented no evidence or argument at resentencing.
McDonald appealed the resentencing, arguing this Court’s prior instruction was erroneous because the trial court’s original sentencing should be treated as a directed verdict of acquittal on the merged offenses. The Court affirmed.

Issue	McDonald’s Argument	State’s Argument	Held
Whether this Court’s prior appellate ruling on sentencing is binding on remand	The original trial-court sentencing should be treated as a directed acquittal of merged offenses, so this Court’s remand instructions were erroneous	Prior appellate ruling controls; remand instructions were correct	The prior decision is the law of the case and binds the court; remand sentencing was proper
Whether ineffective-assistance/new claims of counsel may be relitigated on remand	Seeks reconsideration or raises new ineffective-assistance claims	Previous appellate adjudication binds reconsideration; new claims are barred by res judicata	Law of the case bars reconsideration of issues previously decided; res judicata bars new claims that could have been raised earlier

McDonald v. State, 296 Ga. 643, 770 S.E.2d 6 (Ga. 2015) (prior appellate decision directing remand and merger/sentencing adjustments)
Roulain v. Martin, 266 Ga. 353, 466 S.E.2d 837 (Ga. 1996) (statutory law-of-the-case rule applies to criminal appeals)
Moon v. State, 287 Ga. 304, 696 S.E.2d 55 (Ga. 2010) (discussing exceptions to law-of-the-case, including evidentiary-posture exception)
Beasley v. State, 298 Ga. 49, 779 S.E.2d 301 (Ga. 2015) (res judicata bars claims that were or could have been adjudicated earlier)