S14A0395. HUMPHREY v. WILLIAMS.
S14A0395
Supreme Court of Georgia
2014
295 Ga. 536
NAHMIAS, Justice.
FINAL COPY
In August 2004, Williams filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus alleging, among other claims, that Billy Grantham, his attorney at trial and on direct appeal, provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Williams claimed that Grantham conducted a deficient pretrial investigation by failing to obtain Florida court records showing that the alleged similar transaction never took place. Williams argued that if Grantham had conducted a competent investigation and found those records, his daughter‘s testimony would have
The habeas court initially denied Williams‘s petition in November 2006, but in January 2008 this Court granted his application to appeal and vacated that judgment bеcause the habeas court had not allowed Williams a full and fair opportunity to present his claims. On remand, at a new evidentiary hearing in October 2008, Williams presented the Florida court records and showed that they were readily available to Grantham at the time of trial. On December 31, 2012, the habeas court entered a detailed order setting aside Williams‘s convictions. The court concluded that Grantham‘s investigation of the alleged similar transaction was professionally deficient and that, but for counsel‘s failure to obtain the Florida records, there was a reasonable probability that the outcome of Williams‘s trial would have been more favorable to him, because his daughter‘s testimony would have been either excluded or successfully impeached.
The Warden now appeals, arguing, among other things, that reversal is required because the Florida court records on which the habeas court based its
As we explain below, the record shows that the Florida court records were in fact admitted into evidence at the 2008 habeas hearing, and we agree with the habeas court that Grantham‘s investigation of the alleged similar transaction was professionally deficient. The Warden is right that the habeas court erred in treating the Florida records as acquittal evidence precluding the admission of the similar transaction testimony, but the Warden is wrong in his assertion that the evidence at Williams‘s trial, aside from the similar transaction evidence, was overwhelming. Instead, the habeas court correctly concluded that if Grantham had obtained and used the Florida court records, the similar transaction testimony would have been either excluded or convincingly refuted at trial, and
1.
Our evaluation of the Warden‘s arguments requires a detailed review of what the reсord shows regarding how the 2002 case against Williams arose, the evidence that was presented at the similar transaction hearing and at trial, and the additional evidence that was presented during the habeas corpus proceedings.
(a) Background.
In January 2000, Williams, who was then 38 years old, was living in a double-wide trailer in Decatur County with his then-wife, Jonell Williams (“Jonell“); their four-year-old son; and Jonell‘s two daughters from a prior relationship, a nine-year-old and a 13-year-old, whom we will refer to as Stephanie. While Jonell was out of town for a week on business, Stephanie invited her 14-year-old friend and classmate, whom we will call Amanda, to sleep over on the night of Monday, January 24, 2000. Joe, a 17-year-old family
Over two years later, in March 2002, Stephanie told her mother Jonell that she wanted to go live with her father and would run away from home if Jonell said no. Jonell questioned Stephanie over three to four days about her suddenly expressed desire to go live with her father, and Stephanie provided a number of different explanations. Finally, after an hour-long discussion about why she
A few days later, Jonell сontacted DCSO Investigator Frank Green and told him that he needed to speak with Williams‘s adult daughter, Jessica, who lived in Florida. (Decatur County borders on Florida.) On Friday, March 29, 2002, Investigator Green conducted a telephone interview of Jessica while she was at Jonell‘s trailer visiting Jonell for the weekend. According to Green, Jessica said that one night when she was in elementary school and living in Florida, she was asleep in bed with her younger brother in their bedroom when Williams, who was drunk, came into the room and started rubbing her over her underwear “in the vagina area, on her buttocks“; he left the room when Jessica told him to stop but came back again three times that night and did the same
On May 7, 2002, Williams was indicted for statutory rapе and child molestation for allegedly having sexual intercourse with Amanda on the night of January 24-25, 2000; three counts of child molestation for allegedly masturbating in front of Stephanie in February or March of 2000, exposing his penis to Stephanie and asking her to touch it sometime during the months of May through August 2000, and fondling Stephanie‘s vaginal area in December 2000; and contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly furnishing alcohol to Amanda and Stephanie on the night of January 24-25, 2000. Billy Grantham, an experienced criminal defense lawyer, was appointed to represent Williams.
On July 30, 2002, the trial court held a pretrial evidentiary hearing to determine if similar transaction evidence relating to the alleged 1993 incident involving Jessica could be admitted at trial.2 Investigator Green testified and recounted the substance of his telephone interview with Jessica. Grantham cross-examined the officer perfunctorily, but he presented no witnesses for Williams and offered no exhibits for the trial court to consider. In arguing that the court should exclude the similar transaction evidence, Grantham asserted that the alleged prior incident was too remote in time and that the acts that Williams allegedly committed in 1993 and in 2000 were not sufficiently similar, because there was no allegation that the 1993
(c) The Trial.
Williams‘s trial took place on November 5-6, 2002.
(1) The State‘s Case-in-Chief.
The State called five witnesses: Amanda, Joe, Stephanie, Jonell, and Jessica. Amanda, who was 17 by the time of trial, testified that she spent the night of January 24-25, 2000, at the Williams residence and that after Stephanie‘s little sister and little brother went to bed around 8:00 p.m., Williams drank whiskey with her, Stephanie, and Joe, and they all got drunk. Amanda said that sometime between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, Stephanie and Joe went outside and Williams got up from his recliner
Joe testified that on January 24, 2000, Stephanie called and invited him over, and he went over and drank whiskey with Williams, Amanda, and Stephanie until around 10:00 p.m., when Stephanie grabbed the whiskey bottle off the table in the living room and ran outside. Joe said that he chased after Stephanie, caught up with her on the trampoline in the backyard, took the bottle away from her, and then led Stephanie back inside and put away the whiskey for
Stephanie, who was 16 by the time of trial, testified consistently with Amanda and Joe about the drinking on the night of January 24, 2000, but her testimony differed from theirs in some notable ways. For example, Stephanie denied calling Joe and inviting him to come over that night. She also testified that Amanda was in the living room with Williams when Joe brought her back inside after she ran outside with the whiskey bottle and that Amanda then sat beside her on the couch for the rest of the evening until Stephanie fell asleep
Stephanie also testified that Williams was sexually inappropriate with her in 2000. She told the jury that Williams gave her “crank” (methamphetamine) and marijuana, masturbated in front of her, and made lurid comments on Easter Sunday 2000 and again once that summer when he also asked her to touch his penis. Stephanie also said that in late December 2000, Williams pushed her up against a wall, shoved his hand in her underwear, and asked permission to “finger” her vagina, but she said no and got away by distracting him with the
Jonell then testified that when she returned from her business trip in January 2000, she found strange hair fasteners in her bed and confronted Williams and Stephanie, who told her that Amanda spent the night and that the girls got drunk and skipped school but that nothing else happened. Jonell said there was no mention of sex. Jonell recounted how she found out in 2002 “what [Stephanie] had to tell [her]” but did not relate the specifics of Stephanie‘s
The State‘s closing witness in its case-in-chief was Jessica, who testified that one night when she was 11 and living in Florida, Williams was drunk and came into her bedroom, lay down beside her on the bed, and started rubbing on her behind, over her underwear but underneath her shirt. Jessica said that she pushed Williams out of bed and told him to stop, and he left but came back three other times that night and did the same thing. Jessica also said that the incident was reported to Florida‘s equivalent of DFACS and she was placed in a foster home, then put with Williams‘s mother, and later on returned to Williams. Jessica also testified that Williams had told her about two years before his November 2002 trial that Amanda and Stephanie were sneaking into his alcohol, Stephanie was on the trampoline with a boy, Amanda was passed out in his bed,
The State also introduced three exhibits at trial: a picture of Stephanie taken on Easter Sunday 2000; a pair of swim trunks with the lining cut out that Williams frequently wore around the trailer, which Stephanie said he had on once with his feet propped up and his legs spread so that she could “see like his private part or whatever hanging out“; and an August 2002 letter from Williams to Joe, which is not in the record on appeal. According to Joe, the letter “was about this court case, saying that they was trying to get me. They was trying to turn everything against me. They were trying to get me in the same process as him. . . . He told me not to come.”
Recognizing the importance of the similar transaction evidence, Grantham‘s defense of Williams began by calling four family members to counter Jessica‘s testimony that Williams had touched her inappropriately in 1993. The first two defense witnesses were Williams‘s sisters — Jessica‘s aunts. Tracey Baggett testified that after Jessica made her allegation against Williams, she and her younger brother were put in foster care and then placed with her and Williams‘s mother for a while, but “the State” ultimately gave the children back to Williams. On cross-examination, the prosecutor challenged Baggett‘s assertion that a legal process resulted in the children‘s rеturn to Williams, saying, “Now that‘s not really what happened, is it . . . ?“; and, “Your mother gave them back to [Williams], is that not correct, rather than the State? Or do you know?” When Baggett replied, “As far as I know, she was ordered to,” the prosecutor said, “Now do you have any documents to back up the statement that the children were given back to . . . [Williams]?” Baggett answered, “No, I don‘t.” The other sister and aunt, Linda Crumney, testified that Jessica told her in 1993 that Williams “had tried to kiss her. That‘s all.” She said that Jessica made this allegation after her mother kidnapped her and her little brother from Crumney‘s front yard. When Crumney
Mary Ann Smith, Williams‘s mother and Jessica‘s grandmother, testified that Jessica made shifting allegations against Williams in the context of a custody battle with Jessica‘s mother and that Jessica‘s allegations were investigated and shown to be false. She recounted one “far-out story” that Williams watched Jessica shower through a tiny hole by the faucets, which the investigation found was impossible, because the hole was completely blocked on the other side оf the wall by the hot water heater. Finally, Charles Williams, Jessica‘s younger brother, testified that he was living with Williams and Jessica in 1993 when Jessica made her claim against Williams, and that he and Jessica shared a bedroom and a bed. He also testified that there was an investigation into Jessica‘s accusation, that he and Jessica were placed in a foster home and then put with their grandmother, and that they eventually returned to Williams‘s custody.
The defense then turned to the allegations regarding Stephanie, with
Williams then testified that on January 24, 2000, while he was outside
Williams denied all of Stephanie‘s accusations of sexual misconduct. Williams said that Jonell and Stephanie had told several people before the allegations of abuse arose in 2002 that they wanted him out of the trailer, which
The defense then rested. Grantham made no attempt tо introduce documents from the Florida proceedings to support the testimony of the defense witnesses that Jessica‘s 1993 allegations were false and were so found by a Florida court, which in fact ordered Jessica to be returned to Williams‘s custody.
(3) The State‘s Rebuttal Case.
The State called Stephanie and Joe again in rebuttal. Stephanie testified that she knew that Joe did not have sex with
After the evidence was closed, the trial court asked Williams if he was satisfied with Grantham‘s performance. Williams replied that he wanted Grantham to call additional witnesses and to introduce
Florida HRS records to prove I was given custody of my kids and that these allegations were false allegations in Florida. I wanted him to subpoena them to court. The counselor‘s recommendations that I get custody of my kids. And the fact that my daughter had lied to the counselor about this and then later admitted it, I would like for that to have been brought into court.
The trial court offered to “postpone this case for another day or two and see
(4) The Closing Arguments.
Grantham‘s closing argument focused on the credibility of the five witnesses against Williams. He attacked Jessica‘s credibility by telling the jury, “Don‘t you know that the Florida courts would have never let [Williams] have her back if they thought for one minute that he had been molesting her?,” and, “Jessica . . . needs for you to believе that she was touched in ‘93. She needs that because she made the claim and she has been called a liar by the courts in Florida. And she needs vindication for that.” The prosecutor began his closing argument by saying, “I would like to straighten out something that Mr. Grantham said. There is not the first bit of evidence that
Contrary to what Mr. Grantham told you, there was not this tale and that tale. She said what he did was come into her bed, drunk, four times in one night, reach his hand up under her skirt and rubbed her on the buttocks over the top of the panties, and that‘s what the similar offense was, and that is it and that is why she left the home, entered a period of counseling, intervention by the court . . . .
Like Grantham, the prosecutor repeatedly emphasized that the jury‘s task was to determine whether to believe the testimony of Williams on the one hand, or the testimony of Amanda, Stephanie, and Joe on the other. He urged the jury to “judge [Williams‘s] credibility” based not only on his testimony at trial but also on “what he has done in the past.” Near the end of the State‘s argument, after emphasizing how hard it is for sexually abused children to come forward and report the abuse, the prosecutor said, “I ask you to believe [Stephanie] and Amanda, I ask you to believe Jessica, . . . because the evidence is there to support what they have said.”
On November 16, 2002, the jury found Williams guilty of all charges. The trial court merged the guilty verdict for statutory rape into the guilty verdict for molesting Amanda and dismissed the guilty verdict for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, which was barred by the two-year statute of limitations for misdemeanors.3 The court then entered four judgments of conviction for child molestation and sentenced Williams to serve a total of 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of probation.
(d) The Direct Appeal.
Grantham continued to represent Williams post-trial. Instead of filing a motion for new trial, Grantham filed an immediate notice of appeal. In his brief to the Court of Appeals, Grantham raised two enumerations of error: the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support Williams‘s convictions, and the trial court‘s admission of the similar transaction evidence. Grantham did not argue that the 1993 incident did not occur, only that it was not sufficiently similar to the incidents in 2000 charged in the indictment. The Court of Appeals аffirmed. See Williams, 263 Ga. App. 22.
(e) The Habeas Proceedings.
On August 25, 2004, Williams filed a pro se petition for habeas corpus, alleging ineffective assistance of counsel and other claims. On July 21, 2005, Senior Judge William Neville, sitting by designation, held a hearing at which Grantham and Williams testified, and on November 6, 2006, the court entered an order denying the petition. On January 8, 2008, this Court entered an order granting Williams‘s application for a certificate of probable cause to appeal; vacating the judgment because Judge Neville had
On October 27-28, 2008, Judge Dwayne Gillis held a hearing at which Grantham, Williams, Baggett, Crumney, Williams‘s mother, a brother of Williams, Schneck, and Schneck‘s daughter Tracey testified. Among other exhibits, the habeas court admitted into evidence documents relating to Jessica‘s 1993 claim of sexual abuse by Williams that Williams had obtained from the Juvenile Division of the Circuit Court, Second Judicial Circuit, in and for Gadsden County, Florida (the “Florida Court“).
The Florida Court documents do not mention any allegation by Jessica that Williams got into bed with her, put his hand under her shirt, and rubbed her behind over her underwear four times in a single night. Instead, the petition for dependency filed by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (“HRS“) on March 10, 1993, alleged that Jessica‘s only claim of sexual abuse against Williams was that he “kissed her and inserted his tongue in her mouth” and “told her that she would get anything she wanted if she would have sex with him for ten minutes.” An April 1994 report by a social worker, John H. Paschal, which was prepared at the Florida Court‘s request based on ten
A September 1, 1994, order by the Florida Court recited that it was based on testimony from the parties and Paschal‘s report and found that “[i]t is in the best interests of the children to have liberal visitation with their father.” A January 4, 1996, court order likewise found, on the basis of testimony from the parties and the joint report of the HRS attorney and counselor, that “[i]t is in the
At the habeas hearing, Williams‘s mother testified that she had obtained most of the Florida Court documents the week after his trial from the courthouse in the adjacent county; she said that the records were “easy [sic] accessible” and “in no way confidential.” At Williams‘s request, she had then called Grantham and told him that she had the documents, but Grantham “said they wouldn‘t have any bearing on the case. But for me to take those documents and put [them] in a safe place where I‘d always know where they was at because I might one day need them again for [Williams].”
Grantham was also questioned about what happened at trial during the sidebar at the end of the defense case, when Williams expressed dissatisfaction with Grantham‘s representation due to his failure to call additional witnesses and introduce records from the Florida case. Grantham said:
I explained to you that we had pretty well established with the jury that you didn‘t do the 1993 incident. You wanted to be sure the jury understood you had custody of your children again. And I think that was perfectly clear to them.
2. A defendant who claims that his constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel was violated assumes a burden that, “though not
(a) The Ineffective Assistance Test.
An ineffective assistance of trial counsel claim has two components: the defendant must show both that his lawyer‘s performance was deficient and that this deficiency prejudiced the defense. See Strickland, 466 U.S. 668. To establish deficiency, the defendant must show that his lawyer discharged his duties in an objectively unreasonable way under prevailing professional norms in light of all the circumstances, see id. at 688; Jones, 292 Ga. at 599, and overcome the law‘s “strong presumption” that the challenged action might be considered sound trial strategy, Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. “Strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable.”
(b) The Habeas Court‘s Factual Findings.
Appearing on behalf of the Warden, the Attorney General asserts first that the Florida Court documents on which the habeas court based its findings of fact are not part of the record of the habeas proceedings. That assertion is true with respect to the 2005 habeas
(c) Deficient Performance.
The Warden next argues that the habeas court erred in determining that Grantham‘s investigation of the alleged similar transaction was deficient. We disagree. The trial and habeas hearing records show that Grantham knew that the State planned to call Jessica at trial to testify that Williams sexually molested her in Florida in 1993 when she was 11 and that the purpose of this testimony was to show Williams‘s intent, course of conduct, modus operandi, or common scheme to support testimony by Amanda and
Grantham, however, made no effort whatsoever to investigate the documentary basis for that judicial decision, although any competent lawyer knows that courts produce documents reflecting (and usually explaining) such decisions. The filings in the 1993 Florida Court case regarding Jessica presented an obvious source of information and evidence for presentation at the similar transaction hearing to try to exclude her testimony altogether and for impeachment if Jessica was allowed to testify at trial. As the habeas court explained, the Florida Court records would have given the trial court and the jury something to corroborate the witnesses, something beyond the “he said, she
The trial record confirms that Williams had told Grantham that useful records about the 1993 incident existed and asked the lawyer to obtain them; this issue came up in open court after the evidence was closed, and the trial court offered to continue the case for a day or two so that Grantham could obtain the documents. By that point, of course, it was too late to have the trial court exclude the similar transaction evidence. Moreover, Grantham clearly did not recognize the import of the Florida records, because he then argued — and convinced Williams — that a continuance was unnecessary because “the information [Williams] wanted subpoenaed, we feel is already in the case sufficiently.” At the 2008 habeas hearing, Grantham gave no reason for his decision and advice not to accept a continuance other than his belief that he had
Under these circumstances, we agree with the habeas court that Grantham‘s investigation of the alleged similar transaction was professionally deficient. In Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 125 S. Ct. 2456, 162 L. Ed. 2d 360 (2005), the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant‘s trial counsel were deficient for failing to obtain a readily available court file on a similar prior offense by their client, which counsel knew the prosecution planned to rely on at a death penalty sentencing hearing. See id. 383-390. The Court noted that “[n]o reasonable lawyer would forgo examination of the file thinking he could do as well by asking the defendant or family relations whether they recalled anything helpful or damaging in the prior victim‘s testimony.” Id. at 389. Concurring in the decision, Justice O‘Connor explained, in terms equally applicable to the prior bad act evidence at issue in this case:
[Trial counsel] did not determine that the [court] file was so inaccessible or so large that examining it would necessarily divert them from other trial-preparation tasks they thought more promising. They did not learn at the 11th hour about the prosecution‘s intent to use the prior conviction, when it was too late for them to change plans. Rather, their failure to obtain the crucial file “was the result of inattention, not reasoned strategic judgment.”
Id. at 395-396 (O‘Connor, J., concurring) (quoting Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510, 534, 123 S. Ct. 2527, 156 L. Ed. 2d 471 (2003)).
Similarly, in Head v. Taylor, 273 Ga. 69, 538 S.E.2d 416 (2000), this Court held that trial counsel were deficient in failing to obtain readily available jail records to disprove an anticipated prosecution claim that the defendant‘s behavior in jail was normal, where counsel were on notice from their own observations of the defendant and a letter he sent to one of them that he was exhibiting signs of mental illness while in jail. See id. at 82. We believe this case is in accord with those precedents. Compare Strickland, 466 U.S. at 699 (holding that trial counsel was not deficient in deciding not to seek more character or psychological evidence than was already in hand where counsel could “reasonably surmise . . . that character and psychological evidence would be of little help“); Head v. Hill, 277 Ga. 255, 267, 587 S.E.2d 613 (2003) (holding that trial counsel reasonably abandoned their efforts to obtain certain
(d) Prejudice Based on Collateral Estoppel.
The Warden fares better in challenging the habeas court‘s ruling that Williams established Strickland prejudice because presentation of the Florida Court records at the similar transaction hearing would have resulted in the automatic exclusion of the similar transaction evidence based on the doctrine of collateral estoppel. In reaching this conclusion, the habeas court relied on this Court‘s decision in Moore v.
As the Warden correctly points out, there was no prior judgment of acquittal in this case, because criminal charges were never brought against Williams in connection with Jessica‘s allegations. Moreover, Moore relied on the United States Supreme Court‘s holding in Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 90 S. Ct. 1189, 25 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1970), that the doctrine of collateral estoppel in criminal cases is an aspect of the constitutional protection against double
The habeas court also concluded, however, that Williams demonstrated Strickland prejudice even aside from the application of collateral estoppel. The habeas court found that Grantham did not show the trial court at the similar transaction hearing that the Florida Court awarded full custody of Jessica back to Williams after she made her 1993 allegation of sexual abuse due to the lack of evidence to support her claim, the fact that no lawyer or other professional involved in her case believed that the alleged sexual abuse occurred, and the Florida Court‘s adoption of the findings by various counselors that Jessica was a liar and manipulator who was unworthy of belief. The habeas court found that if the trial court had been
We also note that Moore‘s holding, which was based on collateral estoppel under the fedеral Double Jeopardy Clause, appears to conflict with the United States Supreme Court‘s subsequent decision in Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342, 110 S. Ct. 668, 107 L. Ed. 2d 708 (1990). Dowling holds that a defendant‘s acquittal in a criminal case does not preclude the government, as a matter of double jeopardy, due process, or common-law collateral estoppel doctrine, from presenting evidence of the alleged prior bad act when trying the defendant for a different crime. See id. at 350, 353. This is because the standard of proof for a criminal conviction is higher than the standard of proof for the introduction of similar transaction evidence in a criminal trial; the determination that a crime was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean that the crime was not proved by a preponderance of the evidence or even by clear and convincing evidence. See id. at 349-350. See also Copelan v. Copelan, 294 Ga. 840, 841, 755 S.E.2d 739 (2014) (explaining that the collateral estoppel doctrine does not apply when the first proceeding required proof of the issue by clear and convincing evidence and the second proceeding required proof by the lower preponderance standard). However, we need not decide now whether Moore remains good law, because Williams was not in fаct charged with or acquitted of any crime in the prior Florida case, and even if he had been the dual sovereignty doctrine would prevent the application of collateral estoppel.
Noting that similar transaction evidence “is very damaging evidence in a criminal case, particularly a child molestation trial,” the habeas court concluded that Jessica‘s similar transaction testimony “eroded [Williams‘s] credibility and severely weakened his defense, i.e., that he was a disciplinarian and that his step-daughter and ex-wife ‘wanted him gone’ and that he did not commit a
The Warden contends that this conclusion is flawed, because it ignored the “overwhelming evidence” of Williams‘s guilt, apart from Jessica‘s similar transaction testimony, that was presented at trial. We cannot agree. As detailed
The evidence supporting Williams‘s conviction for molesting Amanda during the January 2000 sleepover consisted of Amanda‘s testimony, testimony by Joe that Amanda told him and Stephanie about the sex while they were at the Williamses’ trailer the following afternoon, and testimony by Williams‘s ex-wife Jonell and Jessica that Williams had admitted that he had sex with Amanda. But Amanda denied telling anyone about the sex until after Stephanie‘s
The State presented no forensic evidence of the alleged molestations, as would be expected where the incidents were not reported until more than a year after the last one allegedly happened. The limited physical evidence that the State offered was not compelling: the photo of Stephanie and the pair of swim trunks that the State argued were too revealing shed little light on the molestation charges, and the letter that Williams wrote to Joe while the case was pending can be viewed as providing support for both the prosecution and the
Against this conflicting evidence, the evidence that Williams had supposedly sexually molested another young girl — another child living in his home — on a previous occаsion was significant, as indicated by the fact that the prosecution called Jessica as the final witness in its case-in-chief and that Grantham then called four witnesses at the start of the defense case to try to rebuff her testimony. The defense witness testimony was useful, but not as compelling as the Florida Court records relating to Jessica‘s allegations that Grantham failed to obtain. The importance of the similar transaction evidence was also demonstrated by the prosecutor‘s repeated references to it in his closing argument — references that the Florida Court records show to be untrue in significant part.
As the Court of Appeals held on direct appeal, the evidence presented at trial was certainly sufficient legally to allow the jury to find Williams guilty as charged. See Williams, 263 Ga. App. 23-24. But we cannot say that the trial evidence was overwhelming, or that, had Jessica‘s similar transaction testimony been excluded or more substantially and concretely impeached, there is not a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different. Like
For these reasons, the judgment of the habeas court setting aside Williams‘s conviction is affirmed. Because the evidence presented at trial was legally sufficient to convict, the State may retry Williams on the charges if it chooses. See Cowart v. State, 294 Ga. 333, 343-344, 751 S.E.2d 399 (2013).
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Decided July 11, 2014.
Habeas corpus. Ware Superior Court. Before Judge Gillis.
Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Clint C. Malcolm, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.
Jimmie R. Williams, pro se.