Background
Quatez White, Dominique Carter, and Darren Mills were indicted on charges including participation in street gang activity, criminal attempt to commit murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, armed robbery, motor vehicle hijacking, second-degree arson, and multiple firearm-possession counts. The three defendants were tried jointly. The jury convicted them of all counts except possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The opinion recounts these proceedings through its citation to Mills v. State, 375 Ga. App. 433, 434 (916 SE2d 479) (2025).
White and Carter later moved for new trials after learning that a convicted felon had served on their jury. Following evidentiary hearings, the trial court denied their motions. It had adopted portions of the transcript from Mills’s new-trial hearing concerning the ineligible juror. White appealed in A26A1053, and Carter appealed in the related A26A1052. The Court of Appeals issued one opinion resolving both appeals, with Judge Markle writing and Presiding Judge Barnes and Judge Hodges concurring.
The central procedural question was whether the defendants had waived their objections by failing to raise the juror’s felony conviction during trial. The court reviewed legal questions de novo, factual findings for clear error, and deferred to the trial court’s credibility determinations because the new-trial ruling presented a mixed question of law and fact. It cited Sarat-Vasquez v. State, 350 Ga. App. 322, 323(1) (829 SE2d 394) (2019), for that standard.
The Court’s Holding
The court held that White was entitled to a new trial because the juror was ineligible and the record established no waiver. Georgia law makes a person convicted of a felony in state or federal court ineligible to serve as a trial juror unless that person’s civil rights have been restored. The court cited OCGA §§ 15-12-40 and 15-12-163(b)(5). It was undisputed that a juror who had been convicted of a felony without restoration of rights sat on the jury.
The court explained that an ineligible juror’s participation does not automatically make a trial void. Relying on State v. Embert, 322 Ga. 199, 208-209(2)(a) (917 SE2d 56) (2025), it described the resulting judgment as voidable: it remains effective if unchallenged, but a valid, properly raised challenge can establish that the verdict is invalid and require a new trial. Embert overruled contrary authority to the extent it treated every trial with an ineligible juror as void.
The court then applied Simms v. State, 323 Ga. 874, 877(2) (928 SE2d 66) (2026). Under Simms, the defect may be waived, but where implied waiver is possible the trial court must examine more than silence. It must determine whether the party knew of the ineligibility and, if not, whether ordinary diligence could have revealed it. Here, the State consented to adoption of the relevant Mills hearing transcript. That evidence showed that the juror did not disclose her prior felony conviction because she did not hear questions addressing it, although the trial court had asked the venire qualifying questions, including felon status, during voir dire. She first became aware of an eligibility issue when the State’s new-trial counsel contacted her. The State also conceded that trial counsel had no reason to know of her status. During White’s hearing, the trial court specifically adopted the “argument and ruling” from Mills’s hearing.
On that record, no factual dispute remained about knowledge or waiver. The court therefore concluded in Division 1 that the verdict was invalid and Carter deserved a new trial, citing Harris v. State, 188 Ga. 745, 751(2) (4 SE2d 651) (1939), and Wright v. Davis, 184 Ga. 846, 850-853 (193 SE 757) (1937). In Division 3, it applied the same reasoning to White because his request to adopt the pertinent Mills transcript had been granted. The trial court erred by failing to grant his new-trial motion on this ground. The court did not address White’s remaining enumerations of error, and it likewise left Carter’s remaining enumerations unresolved. Both judgments were reversed.
Key Takeaways
- A convicted felon whose civil rights have not been restored is ineligible for Georgia trial-jury service, but the resulting judgment is voidable rather than automatically void.
- Failure to object during trial does not alone establish waiver; knowledge and the ability to discover ineligibility through ordinary diligence matter.
- White prevailed on the undisputed record adopted from Mills’s hearing, including the State’s concession that trial counsel had no reason to know of the juror’s felony status.
- The court reversed both new-trial denials and did not reach either defendant’s remaining enumerations of error.
Why It Matters
The decision gives criminal practitioners a concrete application of Embert and Simms: an ineligible-juror claim requires attention to preservation and diligence, but silence at trial is not dispositive when the defense neither knew nor could have known of the disqualification. The ruling is tied to this evidentiary record, including the adopted testimony and the State’s concession, rather than announcing that every undisclosed felony conviction automatically produces a new trial.
It also underscores the value of creating a post-trial record about what the juror disclosed, what counsel knew, and what reasonable diligence could have uncovered. For White, that record made the ineligible-juror ground dispositive and eliminated any need for the appellate court to decide his other claims.