Holmes v. Georgia
Annotate this CaseDequan Holmes appealed his convictions for felony murder, aggravated assault, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime for the shooting death of Javares Alston and the non-fatal shooting of Danielle Willingham. He argued on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to convict him and that the trial court committed plain error when it charged the jury to “consider with great care and caution” Holmes’s out-of-court statements. Holmes, a juvenile at the time the crime was committed, also challenged his sentence of life without parole, arguing that it violated the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court. The Georgia Supreme Court held the evidence was sufficient to convict Holmes and that any error in the trial court’s instruction to the jury did not amount to plain error because the instruction did not affect the outcome of his trial. The Supreme Court also concluded Holmes’ sentence of life without parole was not prohibited by United States Supreme Court precedent, especially in the light of that Court’s recent decision in Jones v. Mississippi, ____ U.S. ___ (141 S.Ct 1307 (2021)).
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