Brown v. Crawford; Freeman v. Brown
Annotate this CaseCorey Bernard Freeman and Ethron Carl Crawford each filed a pre-trial petition for writ of habeas corpus. Recognizing that Freeman and Crawford both qualified as a prisoner pursuant to OCGA 42-12-3(4), the court ordered that the two cases be consolidated for purposes of appeal. At issue was whether the holding in Smith v. Nichols, that the final order in a pre-trial habeas corpus action filed by a prisoner was directly appealable, was effectively abrogated by the amendment to OCGA 42-12-3(1) in Ga. L. 1999, p. 847, section 1, such that these appeals therefore must be dismissed for failure to file an application for discretionary appeal pursuant to OCGA 5-6-35. The court held that although it had held in several cases after the passage of the 1999 amendment that a petitioner could file a direct appeal from the denial of a pre-trial petition for writ of habeas corpus, these cases expressly relied on Nichols without acknowledging that the language of the Act was different than it was when Nichols was decided. Therefore, the court overruled cases which allowed a petitioner to file a direct appeal from the denial of a pre-trial petition for writ of habeas corpus. Accordingly, the court held that, as neither defendant filed an application for discretionary appeal pursuant to OCGA 5-6-35, both appeals were dismissed.
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