Ga. Supreme Court vacates Columbus murder conviction. Could ruling affect other cases?
The Georgia Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of a Columbus man sentenced to life in prison for fatally sucker-punching a popular Northside High School janitor at a Labor Day 2016 barbecue.
The court ruled on a speedy trial challenge that some attorneys believe may affect similar cases.
The justices found that Muscogee Superior Court Judge Bobby Peters’ 2018 decision to reject Merrick Emory Redding’s speedy trial demand lacked sufficient findings of fact and legal analysis for the high court to consider in weighing Redding’s appeal.
Peters said the decision may set a new standard for how Columbus trial courts handle speedy trial motions.
The ruling does not grant Redding a new trial, but sends the case back to Columbus for Peters to provide the facts and justification the Supreme Court demands.
The case
After two hours’ deliberation in November 2018, a jury found Redding guilty of murder and aggravated assault in an unprovoked attack on Joseph Davis around 3:30 p.m. Sept. 5, 2016, at 2342 Bond Ave., in Columbus’ Oakland Park neighborhood off South Lumpkin Road.
Witnesses said Davis, 47, was leaning against a truck as the gathering’s host grilled meat outside in a patio area, where Redding came uninvited from a home across the street and began badgering Davis, who repeatedly told him, “Leave me alone.”
Witnesses said Redding profanely insulted Davis before Davis said, “Go get a job . . . I work hard for my money. Why won’t you get a job?”
The host said Redding moved close to Davis and abruptly hit him on the left side of the head with a roundhouse punch. Davis slid down beside the truck, leaning against it, but never toppled over so that his head hit the ground. He never regained consciousness, and died from a skull fracture in the hospital the next day, after being removed from life support.
Police charged Redding with murder on Sept. 12, 2016. He was given a bond on March 2, 2017, but he could not afford to pay it, and remained jailed.
On Sept. 28, 2017, more than a year after his arrest, Redding still had not been indicted by a grand jury, so he filed a motion to dismiss the charges based on a violation of his constitutional right to a speedy trial. He said he repeatedly had asked that his case be presented to a grand jury, and noted that the passing of time was affecting his defense, as a witness had died since the incident.
A hearing was set for Nov. 30, 2017, but no record shows it was held. The Supreme Court decision said a hearing “apparently” was held on May 9, 2018, but the judge issued no ruling. Redding finally was indicted the following May 22.
His speedy trial demand came up at a pretrial hearing on Oct. 24, 2018, just five days before his trial began. Assistant District Attorney Ray Daniel told Peters that Redding was being held on a probation violation, in addition to murder, and that prosecutors had presented the case to a grand jury as soon as they got toxicology and other crime lab reports they needed.
“I overrule the motion … because of the violation of probation, the toxicology reports and other documents, police reports they had to accumulate in order to take the case to the grand jury for the charge of murder,” Peters said then.
But he did not issue a written order with the information the state Supreme Court felt was warranted.
The Supreme Court wrote that weighing Redding’s motion required a two-part analysis, with the judge first deciding whether the delay was long enough to have the presumption of prejudice, meaning it impaired Redding’s defense. A delay of more than a year meets that standard, as in Redding’s case.
Next the trial court had to consider four factors in deciding whether Redding’s right to a speedy trial was violated: the length of the delay; the reasons for it; the defendant’s asserting his right to a speedy trial; and any prejudice resulting from the delay.
“Here, the trial court barely expressed any findings of fact or conclusions of law when it verbally denied Redding’s speedy trial motion,” the Supreme Court wrote. “Nothing in the court’s brief statement suggests that it conducted the four-factor balancing test…. Furthermore, Redding’s speedy trial claim does not strike us as so patently meritless that its denial is certain and that a remand for consideration of this issue would be a waste of judicial resources.”
District Attorney Julia Slater said the result is that Peters has to issue written findings and analysis and resentence Redding. After that, Redding again may appeal his conviction.
The impact
It was unclear whether the Supreme Court’s ruling could affect other cases with similar circumstances. Slater thought not: “I think that this is fairly isolated,” she said.
Redding’s attorney, Kennon Peebles of Duluth, Georgia, was not immediately available for comment.
The Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit public defenders’ office thought the ruling could affect other cases.
“In constitutional demands, the Georgia Supreme Court has held that there is a presumption of due process violation after a year without trial,” Chief Assistant Public Defender Steve Craft wrote in an email. “The burden is on the state to show there is a legally acceptable reason for the delay…. While the Supreme Court could find sufficient evidence in the record in other cases, depending on the details unique to that case, this ruling could impact a number of convictions where a constitutional demand was filed.”
Peters also commented, via text message, saying the ruling sends a message that the Supreme Court will not tolerate long delays in bringing cases to trial, leaving defendants stuck in jail:.
“The district attorney must timely present cases to a grand jury and not condone people sitting in jail for over a year, and at the same time oppose reasonable bonds…. Cases don’t get better with time. Long delays are unconstitutional.”
Now 55 years old, Redding has an extensive criminal record dating back to 1982. He remains held at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson.