The Court of Appeals of Georgia dismissed a criminal appeal under the new OCGA section 5-6-39.1, holding that the defendant’s motion for an out-of-time appeal was filed beyond the statute’s 100-day deadline and did not fall within the Cook v. State savings clause.
The DC Court of Appeals affirmed Bryant Phillips’s convictions for sexual abuse, kidnapping, and assault but remanded for resentencing, holding that the trial court failed to conduct the mandatory statutory inquiry under D.C. Code § 23-111(b) before imposing a life-without-parole sentence as a repeat violent offender.
The Eighth District reversed a jail-time credit calculation where the trial court awarded credit for days the defendant had already received credit for in a separate, unrelated case, and remanded for factual findings supporting the recalculated credit.
The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed Joshua Rymer’s convictions for aggravated assault and criminal trespass, holding that his claimed belief that he was being pursued did not justify forcibly entering a home with a knife and did not warrant jury charges on mistake of fact or coercion.
The Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed Carl Morey’s conviction for theft by taking from his general contractor, rejecting multiple ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims and finding that limited victim-impact testimony during the guilt phase was harmless error.
The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed convictions for domestic violence strangulation and harassment because the trial court failed to reread constitutional jury instructions—including the presumption of innocence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt—as part of its oral charge to the jury at the close of evidence, applying State v. Shine, 375 Or 112 (2026), and holding the error was plain, not harmless, and warranted discretionary correction even without a trial-level objection.
The Oregon Court of Appeals remanded for resentencing after holding that the trial court violated the Sixth Amendment by imposing a true-life sentence under ORS 163.107(2)(b) based solely on its own factual findings, confirming that a constitutionally valid LWOP sentence for first-degree murder requires jury-found enhancement facts submitted through the Blakely-remedy procedure of ORS 136.760–136.792.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia dismissed a criminal appeal, holding that a motion challenging the sufficiency of an indictment after a guilty plea is not a proper void-sentence claim and cannot support a direct appeal.
The Fourth DCA holds that a trial court lacks jurisdiction to rule on a Rule 3.850 postconviction motion filed before resentencing is complete, as finality for 3.850 purposes occurs only after resentencing.
The First District held that imposing consecutive sentences on two firearm specifications was erroneous where the underlying felonies arose from the same act or transaction, but found no plain error because the defendant received an agreed sentence and failed to object below.