Phan v. State
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted for murdering his wife and two-year-old son "execution style" by gunshots to the back of the head. Defendant's wife, after waking up from a seven-week coma, left for Vietnam, her family's native country. In Phan I, the court vacated a prior trial court order and remanded the case for a more comprehensive analysis as to defendant's claim of a constitutional speedy trial violation, grounded in his assertion of a "systematic breakdown" in the public defender system. The trial court complied with this directive and defendant subsequently appealed the resulting order in which the trial court denied defendant's speedy trial claim and ordered the replacement of his appointed private attorneys with salaried counsel from the capital defender's division of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council (GPDSC). The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's motion to dismiss on speedy trial grounds where the trial court, inter alia, properly weighed the length of the delay against the State and properly weighed defendant's delay in asserting his speedy trial right heavily against the defense. The court also held that the trial court acted within its discretion in replacing defendant's counsel in consideration of the "countervailing considerations" that existed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.