Williams v. Kelley, 291 Ga. 285

Kelley was convicted of two counts of felony murder with aggravating assault in a 1995 jury trial.
The direct appeal affirmance followed; in 2006-2011 Kelley pursued habeas relief alleging ineffective appellate counsel.
Habeas court granted relief, finding appellate counsel failed to argue the trial court erred in charging multiple methods of aggravated assault when only one method was alleged.
Citing Chapman and related Georgia cases, the court held the overcharge could be cured if the indictment and burden instructions were provided to the jury.
The State appealed; the Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding the cure was provided by the trial record and jury instructions, thus overcharging was not reversible error.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether appellate counsel was ineffective for notchallenging the overcharge on aggravated assault	Kelley	Warden	No reversible error; cure existed due to indictment and burden instruction
Whether the overcharging error was cured by providing the indictment and proper burden instructions	Kelley	Warden	Held cured; no prejudice to Kelley

Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (Supreme Court (1984)) (two-prong ineffective assistance standard)
Battles v. Chapman, 269 Ga. 702 (Ga. 1998) (ineffective assistance standard; counsel performance and prejudice)
Anderson v. State, 285 Ga. 496 (Ga. 2009) (presumption of reasonable professional conduct; performance review)
Morgan v. State, 275 Ga. 222 (Ga. 2002) (prejudice prong requires reasonable probability of different outcome)
Head v. Thomason, 276 Ga. 434 (Ga. 2003) (habeas review standards for ineffective assistance)
Walker v. Hagins, 290 Ga. 512 (Ga. 2012) (general framework for habeas and related standards)
Chapman v. State, 273 Ga. 865 (Ga. 2001) (charging a crime by multiple methods when indictment limits method)
Sharpe v. State, 291 Ga. 148 (Ga. 2012) (indictment and burden instruction can cure overcharge)