Higdon v. Georgia
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Appellant Carl Higdon was charged with a total of eight criminal offenses in three accusations filed in the Catoosa County Superior Court and one indictment returned in the Walker County Superior Court, each of which was assigned its own case number. On November 23, 2010, Appellant entered guilty pleas to all four charging instruments during a hearing in the Catoosa County Superior Court, and he asked the trial court to sentence him as a first offender as to all eight crimes in the four charging instruments. The trial court ruled that it had no authority to treat Appellant as a first offender on all eight crimes, because he was pleading to different offenses separated by time and place and charged in separate indictments and accusations. Although the court offered Appellant first offender status on the crime or crimes alleged in any one of the charging instruments, he declined the offer as providing him no benefit. The trial court then entered four separate sentences and judgments, three in Catoosa County Superior Court and one in Walker County Superior Court. Appellant filed four separate appeals in the four cases, which the Court of Appeals resolved in a single opinion, affirming the trial court’s ruling on the first offender issue. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals properly construed the last sentence of the "First Offender Statute." Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that the trial court did not err in declining to grant Appellant first offender treatment on all the crimes in the four separate charging instruments to which he pleaded guilty.
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