Carol W. Hunstein

The case involved Joseph Testino filing a motion for contempt against his former wife Tanya Scherer for closing a business checking account associated with a company awarded to him in their 2008 divorce decree. The trial court held Scherer in both criminal and civil contempt, awarding damages and attorney fees to Testino. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, concluding that Scherer had complied with the plain terms of the divorce decree, amended settlement agreement, and asset transfer agreement, which only required her to maintain the account for a limited period that had long expired. The court determined that the trial court improperly modified the agreements by extending the maintenance requirement indefinitely based on convenience to the business.

family law

In Jones v. State, Michael Jones was convicted of driving under the influence after a Georgia State Patrol trooper detained him in a parking lot during a roadblock operation. The trial court denied Jones's motion to suppress evidence from field sobriety tests, ruling the initial encounter consensual, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trooper's actions—blocking the exit with his patrol car and approaching Jones—constituted a Fourth Amendment seizure because a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave. The court further reasoned that the trooper lacked specific, articulable facts establishing reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, as Jones made no evasive or illegal driving maneuver. As a result, the evidence obtained from the stop should have been suppressed.

criminal lawprocedurecivil rights

Margie McRae petitioned for a writ of mandamus to compel a magistrate judge to issue additional arrest warrants against a contractor she hired for property improvements, alleging that he misappropriated payments for materials, resulting in liens on her property and incomplete work. After a hearing where both parties presented evidence, the magistrate issued one warrant under OCGA § 16-8-15 but declined to issue others; the trial court granted summary judgment in the magistrate's favor. The Supreme Court affirmed, ruling that magistrates have discretion to determine probable cause for arrest warrants and that mandamus will not lie to compel issuance absent a showing of gross abuse of that discretion, which was not present here.

criminal lawpropertyprocedure

Joshua Jackson was convicted of malice murder after beating Okedas McClure to death with a baseball bat over a counterfeit $20 bill received in a drug transaction. Jackson appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction and that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of a prior similar transaction in which he had struck a cousin in the head with a hammer two years earlier as a juvenile. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the trial evidence was sufficient for a rational jury to find Jackson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The court further held that the similar transaction evidence was properly admitted for the purposes of showing course of conduct and bent of mind because the incidents shared sufficient similarities, including arguments over minor matters and head injuries inflicted with objects, and that the fact the prior act occurred when Jackson was a juvenile did not render it inadmissible.

criminal law

In Ortiz v. State, the appellant was convicted of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, and firearm possession after shooting and killing two victims during an argument at his home, with evidence including his confession and eyewitness accounts of multiple shots fired in succession. On appeal from the denial of his motion for new trial, he challenged the jury instructions as an improper sequential charge that violated Edge v. State by requiring the jury to reject murder before considering voluntary manslaughter, and he argued that his aggravated assault convictions should have merged with the murder counts. The court affirmed the denial of a new trial, finding no plain error in the jury charge when viewed as a whole because the instructions and verdict form required simultaneous consideration of the offenses including any mitigating circumstances. However, it vacated one aggravated assault conviction, holding that the non-fatal shots created a completed offense but the subsequent close-succession shots to the head did not involve a deliberate interval and thus merged into the malice murder. The case was remanded for resentencing.

criminal lawprocedure

In Ennis v. Ennis, a husband who had returned to Georgia filed for divorce, alimony, property division, and attorney fees against his wife, who had moved to Virginia after the couple's separation there; the wife sought dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction under Georgia's long-arm statute. The court held that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over the wife because she had not maintained minimum contacts with Georgia since 2003, had not transacted business or owned property there, and the marriage's dissolution arose from events in Virginia, failing the three-part test from Smith v. Smith. However, the court ruled that the trial court could still exercise jurisdiction over the marriage itself to grant a divorce under OCGA § 19-5-2 based on the husband's six-month residency. It therefore affirmed denial of the motion to dismiss the divorce but reversed denial of the motion as to the other claims.

family lawprocedure