Seabolt v. Norris, 298 Ga. 583

Background

In 1995 Melissa Norris (age 15) was implicated in the shooting death of her father; she made pretrial statements that she shot him during an argument and also that she may have been "playing with" the gun and did not know it was loaded. At trial she later testified differently.
In 1997 a jury convicted Norris of malice murder, aggravated assault, and a weapons charge; the trial court refused requested jury charges on accident and on involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder.
Norris obtained an out-of-time direct appeal (affirmed by this Court) and later filed habeas corpus relief in 2012, alleging appellate counsel was ineffective for several omissions on direct appeal.
After depositions of trial and appellate counsel, the habeas court granted relief finding appellate counsel ineffective on multiple grounds; the warden appealed.
The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed habeas relief only as to appellate counsel’s failure to raise the trial court’s refusal to charge involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder, and reversed as to the other claimed defects in appellate advocacy.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Norris)	Defendant's Argument (State/Warden)	Held
Failure to request/charge accident defense	Trial court should have charged accident; appellate counsel ineffective for not raising it	Evidence supported reckless conduct rather than accident; appellate claim lacked merit	Reversed: habeas court erred; appellate counsel not ineffective on accident charge
Failure to request/charge involuntary manslaughter as lesser of malice murder	Trial court should have charged involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder; appellate counsel ineffective for not raising it	Trial court charged it only as lesser of felony murder; State argued no basis as lesser of malice murder	Affirmed: appellate counsel ineffective; failure prejudicial because evidence supported reckless conduct and verdict was not overwhelming
Failure to raise trial counsel ineffective for not objecting to prosecutor’s comments on silence/inconsistent statements	Appellate counsel should have argued trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to prosecution’s cross-exam/closing that commented on Norris’s silence/inconsistent pretrial statements	Prosecutor’s questions/comments addressed inconsistencies between pretrial statements and trial testimony and did not violate the rule against commenting on silence; objections would have been meritless	Reversed: habeas court erred; appellate counsel not ineffective on this ground
Failure to raise limitation of closing argument to one hour	Appellate counsel should have argued trial court erred by limiting defense closing argument to one hour	Defense counsel acquiesced at trial to one-hour limit and therefore waived the issue on appeal	Reversed: habeas court erred; appellate counsel not ineffective for omitting this waived issue

Key Cases Cited

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (attorney performance & prejudice standard for ineffective assistance)
Smith v. Francis, 253 Ga. 782 (Georgia standard on prejudice for ineffective assistance)
State v. Alvarado, 260 Ga. 563 (written request to charge lesser included must be given if any evidence supports it)
Browner v. State, 296 Ga. 138 (distinguishing accident from reckless conduct in homicide contexts)
Stringer v. State, 285 Ga. 842 (permissible cross-examination about inconsistencies between pretrial statements and trial testimony)
State v. Sims, 296 Ga. 465 (discussion of Mallory bright-line rule and limits on commenting on silence)
Agee v. State, 279 Ga. 774 (acquiescence waives appellate challenge to trial-court ruling)
Humphrey v. Lewis, 291 Ga. 202 (appellate ineffectiveness claim fails when issue was waived by trial counsel)
Norris v. State, 282 Ga. 430 (prior direct-appeal opinion addressing facts and convictions)