Walker-Madden v. State, 301 Ga. 744

Defendant (Walker-Madden) was convicted by a jury of malice murder, cruelty to children (1st degree), and aggravated sexual battery/aggravated assault; convictions were affirmed in part by this Court in a prior opinion.
This Court vacated part of the judgment and remanded because the trial court erred by treating cruelty to children and aggravated battery as merged with the murder conviction and thus failed to sentence on those counts.
On remand the trial court imposed a 20-year sentence for cruelty to children and life for aggravated sexual battery, to run concurrently with the existing life-without-parole murder sentence.
On appeal from that resentencing, appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the two counts for which he was newly sentenced and requested clarification whether sufficiency can be raised after remand.
The State moved to dismiss; the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that the prior appellate determination that the evidence was legally sufficient is binding and sufficiency cannot be relitigated on appeal of a resentencing.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether sufficiency of the evidence may be raised on appeal of a resentencing after this Court previously found the evidence legally sufficient	Walker-Madden argued counsel must be able to raise sufficiency on the resentencing appeal (to avoid ineffective-assistance claims)	State argued this Court already decided sufficiency and that ruling is binding; issues decided or that could have been raised in the first appeal may not be relitigated on remand	Appeal dismissed; prior sufficiency ruling is binding and sufficiency cannot be raised again on appeal of the resentencing (only sentencing issues may be raised)

Walker-Madden v. State, 299 Ga. 32 (affirming convictions and holding evidence legally sufficient)
Hulett v. State, 296 Ga. 49 (remanding for sentencing where trial court improperly merged counts)
Kent v. A. O. White, Jr., Consulting Engineer, 266 Ga. App. 822 (issues not raised on first appeal cannot be considered in subsequent appeals)
Foster v. State, 290 Ga. 599 (issues decided on first trial appeal cannot be relitigated after remand and retrial)
Jackson v. State, 323 Ga. App. 602 (sentencing/unfairness claims must be raised in first appeal and cannot be raised for the first time after remand)
Richards v. State, 275 Ga. 190 (dismissal of appeal where issues were previously decided)