Flanders v. State

FINAL COPY

             S20G0464.    FLANDERS v. THE STATE.


     PER CURIAM.

     In Division 1 of its opinion in this case, the Court of Appeals

erred by holding that the trial court properly declined to address a

claim raised by Christina Flanders in an amended motion to

withdraw her guilty plea. Relying on its decision in Matthews v.

State, 

 (1) (

) (2009), the Court of

Appeals held that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to consider the

claim because the amended motion was filed outside the term of

court in which Flanders had entered her guilty plea, even though

the original motion was timely filed within the term of court in

which the plea was entered. See Flanders v. State, 352 Ga. App.

XXIV (Case No. A19A0908) (October 8, 2019) (unpublished). For the

reasons explained below, we grant Flanders’s writ of certiorari,

vacate the Court of Appeals’s opinion, and remand the case to the

Court of Appeals to address the claim raised in Flanders’s amended
motion.1

      The facts underlying this case were set forth by the Court of

Appeals as follows:

           In 2016, the Department of Family and Children
      Services (“DFCS”) started an investigation into
      allegations of child abuse of the victim, J. F. According to
      an anonymous source, the victim had a black eye and a
      burn on her wrist. The victim was the daughter of
      Flanders’s husband and, therefore, Flanders’s stepdaughter. The victim lived with Flanders and her
      husband at the time of the investigation. The anonymous
      source was later identified as Jinna Ward, the victim’s
      aunt and Flanders’s sister-in-law.
           Following the investigation, DFCS physically
      removed the victim from the custody of Flanders and her
      husband, placed the victim in the care of an uncle, and
      prohibited Flanders from having contact with the victim.
      After a series of interviews and further investigations, a
      grand jury indicted Flanders on one count of aggravated
      assault (OCGA § 16-5-21) and two counts of cruelty to
      children in the first degree (OCGA § 16-5-70). According
      to the indictment, Flanders burned the victim’s arm with
      a hair straightening iron and hit the victim in the face,
      causing extensive bruising. Flanders later entered an

      1 “Our rules contemplate that we may grant a petition for certiorari and

dispose of the case summarily, without full briefing and oral argument, and we
elect to do so here because the issue we resolve would not benefit from further
briefing and argument.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Sanchious v.
State, 

, 581 n.1 (

) (2020) (citing former Supreme Court
Rule 50 (2)). See also Supreme Court Rule 50 (1) (current rule on summary
dispositions).



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     Alford[2] plea to all charges. On December 19, 2017,
     following a sentencing hearing, the trial court sentenced
     Flanders to a total sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment
     and 5 years[’] probation.
           On January 5, 2018, Flanders filed a motion to
     withdraw her guilty plea, alleging that two different trial
     attorneys were ineffective. On February 20, 2018,
     Flanders filed an amended motion to withdraw, alleging
     that the State had violated [its] obligations under Brady[3]
     because it had failed to disclose the existence of a taped
     interview with the victim wherein the victim had denied
     that Flanders injured her. After a hearing, the trial court
     denied Flanders’s motion to withdraw her plea.

Flanders, slip op. at 2-3. The trial court did not address Flanders’s

Brady claim.

     In the brief in support of her direct appeal, Flanders argued

that the trial court erred in failing to address the claim. In affirming

the trial court’s judgment, the Court of Appeals held:

          Because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to
     consider [Flanders’s] Brady claim, the trial court correctly
     declined to rule on it. The terms of court of the superior
     courts of Screven County commence on the second
     Monday in January and the first Monday in April, July,
     and October. OCGA § 15-6-3 (30) (D). Flanders entered
     her guilty plea on November 27, 2017, was sentenced on
     December 19, 2017, and filed her initial motion to
     withdraw her plea on January 5, 2018, all within the

     2 North Carolina v. Alford, 

 (

, 27 LE2d 162) (1970).
     3 Brady v. Maryland, 

 (

, 10 LE2d 215) (1963).

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      October 2017 term of court. It was not until February 20,
      2018, after the next term of court began, that Flanders
      first raised a Brady claim through her attempt to amend
      her motion to withdraw her guilty plea. “The amended
      [motion], containing [a new claim], [was] therefore not
      within the court’s jurisdiction and could not form a basis
      for withdrawal.” (Citation omitted.) 

 (1). Accordingly, because the trial court
      did not have jurisdiction to address Flanders’s Brady
      claim, resolution of that claim must be sought through
      habeas corpus proceedings, and we therefore affirm the
      denial of her motion to withdraw her guilty plea.

(Footnote omitted.) Flanders, slip op. at 4-5. Although the holding in

Matthews supports the Court of Appeals’s decision, Matthews was

wrongly decided and must be overruled.

      None of the cases relied on in Matthews stand for the

proposition that the court lacked the inherent authority to consider

an amendment to an otherwise proper motion to withdraw a guilty

plea. Rather, they state the common-law rule generally applicable

to a court’s inherent power to modify a judgment within the term of

court.4 We recently revisited this common-law rule and discussed it


      4 In Matthews, the Court of Appeals relied on Rubiani v. State, 

 (

) (2005), Sherwood v. State, 

 (1) (

) (1988), and Kaiser v. State, 

 (1) (

) (2007).

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as follows.

      Georgia courts have long applied the common-law rule
      that the trial court has the inherent authority to modify a
      judgment within the term of court and that “a motion
      made during the term serves to extend the power to
      modify.” Porterfield v. State, 

 (

) (1976) (physical precedent only). As explained
      in United States v. Mayer, 

 (

, 59 LE
      129) (1914), the common-law rule provides that “[i]n the
      absence of [a] statute providing otherwise, the general
      principle obtains that a court cannot set aside or alter its
      final judgment after the expiration of the term at which it
      was entered, unless the proceeding for that purpose was
      begun during that term.” 

 (1) (emphasis supplied);
      see also Miraglia v. Bryson, 

 (

)
      (1922) (following Mayer).

(Footnote omitted.) Gray v. State, 

, ___ (3) (___ SE2d ___)

(2020). It should be clear from this language that the act of filing a

proper motion extends the court’s inherent authority to modify the

judgment during the pendency of the proceeding initiated by the

motion. In such circumstances, the court’s inherent authority is not



Each of these cases held that, when the term of court has expired in which a
defendant was sentenced pursuant to a guilty plea, the trial court lacks
jurisdiction to allow the withdrawal of the plea. Once the term of court in which
a defendant was sentenced has expired, the only available means for an
appellant to withdraw his guilty plea is through habeas corpus proceedings.
None of these cases addressed the court’s power to consider amendments to an
otherwise proper motion to withdraw a guilty plea.
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prescribed by or limited to the claims initially raised by the movant;

rather, the court’s authority to revise, correct, revoke, modify, or

vacate the judgment, even upon its own motion, is continued beyond

the term of court by virtue of the motion having been filed. See

Barlow v. State, 

 (

) (2005) (discussing

the inherent authority of the court generally). Thus, once a

proceeding has been initiated by a timely motion to alter the

judgment, the court’s power extends to any matter pertinent to the

judgment at issue in that proceeding, including any amendment to

the initial motion, even though the amendment is made outside the

term of court in which the judgment was entered and the initial

motion filed. See 

     With respect to a motion to withdraw a guilty plea, no statutory

authority prohibits a defendant from amending outside the term of

court a proper motion to withdraw a guilty plea that was filed within

the term of court in which the conviction was entered. In fact, “[n]o

statute sets forth the procedures by which a motion to withdraw a

guilty plea may be entertained by the trial court after a sentence has

                                  6
been pronounced.” (Footnote omitted.) McKiernan v. State, 

 (

) (2010).5 Thus, the general common-law rule

applies to a motion to withdraw a guilty plea. See 

 (“This is a

judicially created rule, which evolved from the established common

law tenet that a court cannot set aside or alter a judgment after the

expiration of the term at which it was entered, unless the proceeding

for that purpose was begun during the original term.” (citations and

punctuation omitted)).6

      Because the holding in Matthews is contrary to our holdings in

McKiernan and Gray, it must be overruled.7 The holding in


      5 Withdrawal of a guilty plea before judgment is pronounced is governed

by OCGA § 17-7-93 (b).
       6 We note, however, that an otherwise proper amended motion does not

act to cure an initial motion that was untimely. See White v. State, 

 (3) (

) (2017) (“[A]n amended motion is not a time
machine that allows a litigant to change past events. Appellant invokes the
‘relation back’ doctrine for amendments of pleadings in civil actions, see OCGA
§ 9-11-15 (c), but he cites no authority for applying that doctrine in this
criminal context. Moreover, even in the civil context, a pleading purporting to
amend a prior filing that was a nullity — as Appellant’s pro se motions to
withdraw guilty pleas were — does not relate back in time to the date of the
non-filing, as the trial court here recognized.” (citation omitted)).
       7 We also overrule Riggs v. State, 

 (3) (

) (2012) (“While Riggs filed his initial motion to withdraw during the same
term, it was not until the June 2011 term of court, however, that he attempted
to amend his motion to add the above claims. Consequently, the amended

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Matthews also conflicts with those cases in which this Court has

urged defense counsel to preserve their clients’ post-conviction

remedies by filing “placeholder motions” that may be amended later

by new counsel. For example, in Dos Santos v. State, 

 (5) (

) (2019), we noted that the time within which

a defendant may timely file a motion to withdraw a guilty plea

depends on how many days are left within the term of court, and the

remaining time could be as short as a day. Consequently,

      when time is tight, plea counsel may protect their client’s
      interests by filing a timely, bare-bones “placeholder”
      motion to withdraw guilty plea, which — unlike an
      untimely motion or an inoperative motion filed pro se by
      the still-represented client — meets the filing deadline
      and might be amended later (by conflict-free new counsel
      if necessary).

(Citations omitted.) 

 See also Ringold v. State, 

, 446

n.2 (

) (2020) (same). Implicit in this discussion from

Dos Santos and Ringold is that such motions may be amended in a

subsequent term of court and that the court retains the inherent


motion, containing new claims, was therefore not within the court’s jurisdiction
and could not form a basis for withdrawal.” (citations and punctuation
omitted)).
                                       8
authority to consider them.

     Therefore, this Court grants the petition for a writ of certiorari,

vacates the Court of Appeals’s opinion, and remands this case to the

Court of Appeals so that it may address Flanders’s claim that the

trial court erred in declining to address the Brady claim raised in

her amended motion to withdraw her guilty plea.

     Petition for writ of certiorari granted, judgment vacated, and
case remanded. Melton, C. J., Nahmias, P. J., and Boggs, Peterson,
Bethel, Ellington, and McMillian, JJ., concur. Warren, J., not
participating.




                    DECIDED DECEMBER 21, 2020.
     Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Georgia — 352 Ga. App.
XXIV.
     Hall & Navarro, Martha C. Hall; Robert L. Persse, for
appellant.
     Richard A. Mallard, District Attorney, Keith A. McIntyre,
Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.




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