Summary
The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed David William Keener’s convictions for felony murder and aggravated battery arising from two separate trials. The court rejected his claims that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach a witness with prior inconsistent statements and that the trial court applied the wrong standard when denying his motion for a new trial.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to impeach eyewitness Charlie with allegedly prior inconsistent statements from an investigative interview.
- Whether the trial court applied the correct legal standard in denying Keener's motion for new trial based on the general grounds that the verdicts were against the weight of the evidence.
Holdings
- Keener failed to establish ineffective assistance because counsel's decision not to use Charlie's nebulous and difficult-to-understand interview statements for impeachment was not objectively unreasonable, and the challenged strategy furthered the defense theory that Charlie was an unreliable witness.
- The trial court applied the correct legal standard because it exercised its duty to weigh and evaluate the evidence and determined that the verdicts were not contrary to the evidence; it did not merely conduct a Jackson v. Virginia sufficiency review.
Key quotations
“In order to prevail on his claim that trial counsel was ineffective, Appellant must show both that counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficient performance was prejudicial.” (850)
“hindsight has no place in an assessment of the performance of trial counsel” (851)
“When faced with a motion for new trial based on these general grounds, the trial court has the duty to exercise its discretion and weigh the evidence.” (851-852)
Factual background
Keener was convicted of aggravated batteries arising from an assault on Steven Yearwood at a homeless encampment and of felony murder and aggravated offenses arising from the beating death of Randall Huling. Evidence at the Huling trial included testimony that Keener repeatedly slammed Huling's head into a guardrail, medical testimony that Huling died from blunt-force trauma, and testimony from a fellow detainee regarding Keener's admission. Keener argued that Huling died after falling and that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach eyewitness Charlie with prior inconsistent statements.
Procedural history
A Hall County grand jury indicted Keener on charges arising from three physical altercations. Counts 1 through 4 were tried separately from Counts 7 through 9; Counts 5 and 6 were dead docketed. Juries convicted Keener of felony murder and aggravated offenses involving Randall Huling and of two counts of aggravated battery involving Steven Yearwood. The trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment plus forty years, denied Keener's amended motion for new trial, and Keener timely appealed. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed.