Miller v. State, 296 Ga. 9

On July 31, 2006, Luther Williams was shot and killed after an argument about money at an Atlanta apartment complex; Miller was identified by two eyewitnesses and confessed to his girlfriend.
Miller was indicted for malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and unlawful possession of a firearm; convicted by a Fulton County jury and sentenced to life plus five years (felony murder later vacated by operation of law).
At trial Officer Shaun Houston testified investigators had identified an alias “Little E” as a suspect; Houston did not expressly state that witnesses identified “Little E” or that Miller was “Little E.”
Trial testimony included that the victim worked two jobs to support family relocated after Hurricane Katrina; Miller did not object at trial on victim-impact grounds.
Miller moved for a new trial alleging evidentiary errors and ineffective assistance of counsel (failure to call his mother about cutting dreadlocks and failure to object to hearsay); the trial court denied the motion and the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed.

Issue	Miller's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence	Miller disputed nothing; raised no sufficiency challenge	Evidence (eyewitness IDs, confession) legally sufficient	Evidence was sufficient to sustain convictions (Jackson standard)
Admission of testimony that investigators identified “Little E” as a suspect	Testimony implied witnesses at scene identified “Little E” and was hearsay	No contemporaneous objection to the specific rephrased testimony; officer only said investigators considered “Little E” a suspect; any error harmless	Not preserved for appeal; in any event no reversible error — harmless given eyewitness IDs and other evidence
Admission of testimony about victim working two jobs / Katrina relocation	Testimony was improper and prejudicial victim-impact evidence	No timely objection at trial; issue not preserved	Not preserved; appellate review denied
Ineffective assistance — failure to call mother / failure to object to triple hearsay	Failure to call mother would have countered eyewitness description of dreadlocks; failure to object to hearsay was deficient	Strategic decision not to call mother to avoid opening door to damaging timing/identity arguments; hearsay was cumulative of strong identification/confession evidence	Performance not shown deficient nor prejudicial under Strickland; no reasonable probability of different outcome

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (legal sufficiency standard)
Durham v. State, 292 Ga. 239 (preservation of hearsay objection)
McKenzie v. State, 271 Ga. 47 (limitations on witness-identification inference)
Weems v. State, 269 Ga. 577 (harmless-error analysis re inculpatory testimony)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective assistance standard)
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (standards for counsel performance claims)
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (prejudice prong clarification for counsel claims)