Davis v. State

FINAL COPY

                S19A0643. DAVIS v. THE STATE.


     WARREN, Justice.

     On March 14, 2016, Appellant Brandon Davis pled guilty in the

Superior Court of Bibb County to the felony murder of Chassity

Lester. Pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, the State nolle

prossed one count of malice murder (the only other charge for which

Davis had been indicted in this matter), and the trial court

sentenced Davis to life imprisonment. Approximately two weeks

later, and during the same term of court, Davis moved, through plea

counsel, to withdraw his guilty plea. At a hearing on that motion —

during which Davis was still represented by the same attorney who

represented him during his guilty plea — Davis personally told the

trial judge that he felt that his plea counsel did not have enough

time to prepare for the case. Davis’s attorney also argued that Davis

was “psychologically coerced” into pleading guilty.         Without

appointing new counsel or receiving evidence on that claim, the trial
court denied Davis’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. In Davis v.

State, 

 (

) (2017), we reversed that denial

and remanded the case for the trial court to hold a hearing with new

counsel on Davis’s ineffectiveness claim. On remand, the trial court

again denied Davis’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea. This Court

dismissed as untimely Davis’s first attempt to appeal that ruling,

but Davis then requested, and was granted, this out-of-time appeal.

For the reasons explained below, we affirm.

     On appeal, Davis contends that his plea counsel was

constitutionally ineffective by failing adequately to prepare for trial,

and that the trial court’s denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty

plea was therefore a “manifest injustice.”      “In the absence of a

showing that withdrawal is necessary to correct a manifest injustice,

a defendant may not withdraw a plea of guilty or nolo contendere as

a matter of right once sentence has been pronounced by the judge.”

Uniform Superior Court Rule 33.12 (B); see also Johnson v. State,

 (

) (2018) (“After sentencing, a

defendant may withdraw his guilty plea only to correct a manifest

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injustice, which exists if the plea was in fact entered involuntarily

or without an understanding of the nature of the charges.”).

Moreover, “[a] decision on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea is a

matter for the sound discretion of the trial court and will not be

disturbed absent manifest abuse.” McGuyton v. State, 

 (

) (2016).

     Denial of effective assistance of counsel can constitute a

manifest injustice requiring withdrawal. Graham v. State, 

 (

) (2017). And although the State generally

bears the burden of showing that a challenged guilty plea was

entered intelligently and voluntarily, “when a criminal defendant

seeks to withdraw a guilty plea on the ground of ineffective

assistance of counsel, the ineffective assistance claim must be

evaluated under the two-prong test set forth in Strickland v.

Washington.”1 Alexander v. State, 

 (

)

(2015); see also Phelps v. State, 

 (750



     1 

 (

, 80 LE2d 674) (1984).



              

) (2013).2 Under that standard, a defendant bears the

burden of showing: (1) that counsel’s performance was deficient; and

(2) “that the deficient performance prejudiced him to the point that

a reasonable probability exists that, but for counsel’s errors, the

defendant would have elected to proceed to trial rather than enter a

[guilty] plea.” Gomez v. State, 

 (

)

(2017) (citation and punctuation omitted).         There is a “strong

presumption” that “counsel’s conduct falls within the broad range of

professional conduct.” 

 (citation and punctuation omitted). And

“[i]f a defendant fails to meet his burden on one prong of the two-

prong test, then the other prong need not be reviewed by the Court.”

      In support of his argument that his plea counsel was

inadequately prepared for trial, Davis contends that plea counsel,

who had only represented him for three months, had a heavy case

load and was preparing for other major felony trials at the same time


      2 We note that Davis acknowledged in writing and orally at his plea

hearing that he understood the constitutional rights he was waiving by
pleading guilty and affirmed that he did so voluntarily.
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he was preparing for Davis’s trial. Davis also complains that five

days before his trial-date setting, the State produced GBI lab tests

connecting Davis to the murder through DNA evidence and

disclosed that it had spoken to witnesses, including Davis’s family

members, and confirmed that those witnesses could positively

authenticate Davis’s voice in an anonymous 911 call that implicated

him in Lester’s murder. Davis contends that after these disclosures,

his plea counsel pressured him to plead guilty without interviewing

these witnesses, conducting any further DNA testing, or doing

anything else to confirm the State’s representations.

     Davis’s contentions, however, are contradicted by the record.

For example, at the motion to withdraw hearing, plea counsel

testified that he treated Davis’s case as a “top priority” when it was

assigned to him, and that he immediately began meeting with Davis

and reviewing discovery, spending about 35 hours preparing for trial

and meeting with Davis at least three times. See, e.g., Rice v. State,

 (

) (2017) (“[T]here exists no magic

amount of time which counsel must spend in actual conference with

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his client.” (citation and punctuation omitted)).    Moreover, plea

counsel testified unequivocally that he was prepared to try Davis’s

case. See Berrien v. State, 300 Ga 489, 492 (

) (2017)

(trial court entitled to credit plea attorney’s testimony that he was

prepared for trial over defendant’s evidence to the contrary).

Regarding the voice-authentication witnesses, trial counsel testified

that the names of those witnesses had been disclosed previously to

the defense on the State’s witness list. Trial counsel testified that

after learning of the State’s voice-authentication witnesses and

DNA evidence, he met with Davis and explained that although the

evidence did not destroy his defense, it weakened it.       Counsel

confirmed that after discussing all of the evidence with Davis, Davis

decided to plead guilty.

     After hearing this and additional evidence and argument on

remand, the trial court recounted its exchange with Davis at the

plea hearing: “I said, are you satisfied with your lawyer’s

representation; Mr. Davis said yes, so he wrote it down and then he

said it to me when I asked the question.” The trial court then found

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that “[i]f Mr. Davis legitimately had any of these issues, he had two

opportunities there to raise those issues, and we would have taken

them into consideration. He didn’t, and Mr. Davis, when he left the

courtroom that day, he didn’t have a problem with legal

representation.” The court then denied Davis’s motion to withdraw

his guilty plea, concluding that Davis failed to show that his counsel

was deficient or that he was prejudiced by any alleged deficiency.

     “The trial court was authorized to credit the testimony of [the

defendant’s] counsel, and its factual findings and credibility

determinations will be accepted unless clearly erroneous,” Jones v.

State, 

 (

) (2010) (citation and

punctuation omitted), whereas its “legal conclusions are reviewed de

novo.”   Arnold v. State, 

 (

) (2012)

(citation and punctuation omitted). And in the absence of explicit

factual and credibility findings by the trial court, we presume

implicit findings were made supporting the trial court’s decision.

See Arnold, 

. Given the circumstances discussed

above, we can identify no clear error in the trial court’s factual

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findings and credibility determinations and no abuse of discretion in

its denial of Davis’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea based on

alleged ineffectiveness of counsel. See, e.g., Rice, 

(newly appointed plea counsel not deficient where, among other

things, she reviewed the file and met with defendant “at least three

times,” and defendant “fail[ed] to articulate with any specificity how

[plea counsel] could have better represented him,” including how

additional, unidentified witnesses that defendant claimed should

have been subpoenaed “would have benefitted his defense”); Glover

v. State, 

 (

) (2016) (defendant failed

to show plea counsel performed deficiently where plea counsel,

among other things, met with defendant numerous times and

reviewed evidence with defendant); Wright v. State, 

 (

) (2013) (plea counsel not deficient where plea

counsel testified that he reviewed case, met with defendant “several

times” to discuss “forensic evidence, potential witnesses, and

possible defenses,” and defendant did not “offer any evidence that

further investigation would have uncovered”); Jones, 

-

                                  8
272 (defendant failed to show plea counsel was deficient where plea

counsel testified that she had prepared for trial and met with

defendant several times to discuss “the State’s evidence and

anticipated witnesses,” and defendant acknowledged that “he met

with counsel three or four times,” but “felt that she could have done

more to get in contact with witnesses”). Because the trial court did

not err in ruling that Davis failed to show that his plea counsel’s

“conduct fell below an objective standard of reasonableness,” Davis’s

appeal fails.

     Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.




                        DECIDED AUGUST 5, 2019.

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          Murder. Bibb Superior Court. Before Judge Simms.
          Cooper, Barton & Cooper, Michael D. Cooper, Ashley A.
     Cooper, for appellant.
          K. David Cooke, Jr., District Attorney, Cara R. Fiore,
Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General,
Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K.
Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Scott O. Teague, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.




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