Gilliam v. State

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: June 21, 2021
S21A0941. GILLIAM v. THE STATE.
MCMILLIAN, Justice.
In 2005, Kelvin Gilliam was jointly tried with Frederick Terrell
and Michael Stinchcomb on an indictment charging them with one
count of murder, one count of felony murder, multiple counts of
aggravated assault, and related firearms charges. The jury found
only Terrell guilty of murder, among other charges, but found
Gilliam and Stinchcomb guilty of multiple counts of aggravated
assault. The trial court sentenced Gilliam to serve a total of ten
years in prison, and Gilliam timely filed a motion for new trial. For
reasons that are not apparent from the record, that motion
languished for years, until Gilliam filed an amended motion for new
trial in May 2019, adopting all of the grounds set out in Terrell’s
amended motion for new trial. The trial court denied Terrell’s and
Gilliam’s motions, and both defendants filed a timely notice of
appeal directed to this Court. Because we do not have jurisdiction
over Gilliam’s appeal, however, we must transfer this case to the
Court of Appeals.
This Court’s jurisdiction “is fixed by the Georgia Constitution
and the statutory law.” Duke v. State, 306 Ga. 171, 177 (3) (a) (829
SE2d 348) (2019). “It is not only the right but the duty of a reviewing
or appellate court to raise the question of its jurisdiction in all cases
in which there may be any doubt as to the existence of such
jurisdiction.” Welborne v. State, 114 Ga. 793, 796 (40 SE 857) (1902).
Gilliam concedes that his convictions for aggravated assault do
not invoke this Court’s appellate jurisdiction. See Ga. Const. of 1983,
Art. VI, Sec. VI, Pars. II and III. Instead, citing Morrison v.
Morrison, 284 Ga. 112 (663 SE2d 714) (2008), Gilliam asserts that,
because Terrell’s appeal from his murder conviction would fall
within this Court’s jurisdiction, this Court should also extend
jurisdiction to his appeal “to foster judicial economy.” We
acknowledge that this Court has previously expressed a willingness
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to retain jurisdiction of certain appeals in the interest of judicial
economy, see id. at 112 (despite questioning jurisdiction, retaining
appeal for purposes of “judicial economy”), and we now address this
anomaly in our jurisprudence.
It appears that this Court first invoked judicial economy as a
basis for subject matter jurisdiction in Beauchamp v. Knight, 261
Ga. 608, 610 n.1 (409 SE2d 208) (1991), in which we expressly noted
that the appeal was not an equity case, but nonetheless retained the
appeal for “reasons of judicial economy.” Since then, we have
occasionally expanded this concept to other appeals squarely outside
our jurisdiction. See, e.g., Nowlin v. Davis, 278 Ga. 240, 240 n.1 (599
SE2d 128) (2004) (“[D]espite the trial court’s discussion of equitable
principles in its second order and its grant of an equitable remedy,
this appeal is not an equity case within our appellate jurisdiction. In
the interest of judicial economy, however, we will resolve the appeal
on its merits.”).
Because “[q]uestions pertaining to [this Court’s] jurisdiction
cannot be sidestepped or pretermitted, as they go to the threshold
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question of whether [this Court] has the authority to decide the
merits of the case[,]” Duke, 306 Ga. at 181 (3) (b), we must now
consider whether to retain Gilliam’s appeal and whether this line of
cases was rightly decided. As we have recently noted, “[w]hile, in
some cases, the interests of judicial economy may not be served
when a reversible error is addressed by appellate courts only after
the entry of a final judgment, that is not a problem this Court is
empowered to remedy.” Id. at 179 (3) (a). Here, the only basis for this
Court to exercise jurisdiction over Gilliam’s appeal would be to serve
the interest of judicial economy, but Gilliam points to no statute or
constitutional provision authorizing this Court to exercise
jurisdiction on that basis. None of the cases in which this Court has
exercised jurisdiction in the interest of judicial economy has
identified the basis of our authority to do so; in those cases we
pretermitted the jurisdictional question or actually recognized that
there was no basis for jurisdiction. Based on our independent
review, we discern no statutory or constitutional basis for invoking
this Court’s jurisdiction solely in the interest of judicial economy.
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Thus, we conclude that this line of cases was not rightly decided.
However, we must now address whether considerations of
stare decisis nonetheless weigh in favor of retaining judicial
economy as a basis for exercising this Court’s jurisdiction. Under the
doctrine of stare decisis, we generally stand by our prior decisions to
“promote[] the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent
development of legal principles, foster[] reliance on judicial
decisions, and contribute[] to the actual and perceived integrity of
the judicial process.” State v. Burns, 306 Ga. 117, 123 (2) (829 SE2d
367) (2019) (citation omitted). However, stare decisis “is not an
inexorable command[,]” and “[i]n reconsidering our prior decisions,
we must balance the importance of having the question decided
against the importance of having it decided right.” Id. (citation
omitted; emphasis in original). In making this determination, we
consider “the age of precedent, the reliance interests at stake, the
workability of the decision, and, most importantly, the soundness of
its reasoning.” Olevik v. State, 302 Ga. 228, 244-45 (2) (c) (iv) (806
SE2d 505) (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted).
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We begin by noting that it is well settled that stare decisis
applies with the least force to constitutional precedents. See Ga.
Dept. of Nat. Resources v. Center for a Sustainable Coast, Inc., 294
Ga. 593, 601 (2) (755 SE2d 184) (2014). We have explained the
reason for this approach: “it is much harder for the democratic
process to correct or alter our interpretation of the Constitution than
our interpretation of a statute or regulation.” Id. (citation omitted).
But even in constitutional cases,
[t]his doesn’t mean that we disregard stare decisis
altogether . . . ; what it actually means is that the . . .
soundness of reasoning [factor] becomes even more
critical. The more wrong a prior precedent got the
Constitution, the less room there is for the other factors
to preserve it.
Olevik, 302 Ga. at 245 (2) (c) (iv) (punctuation omitted).
Here, the soundness factor weighs heavily in favor of
overruling cases in which this Court has ignored the constitutional
parameters of its jurisdiction without any significant analysis. See
Olevik, 302 Ga. at 244 (2) (c) (iii) (lack of analysis and summary
conclusion supported overruling cases); State v. Hudson, 293 Ga.
6656, 661 (748 SE2d 910) (2013) (overruling holding that contained
no analysis). And none of the remaining factors support retaining
judicial economy as a basis for jurisdiction. The earliest case was
decided 30 years ago, and we have overruled decisions older than
that. See, e.g., Southall v. State, 300 Ga. 462, 468 (1) (796 SE2d 261)
(2017) (overruling 45-year-old precedent); Hudson, 293 Ga. at 661(overruling 38-year-old precedent). And these “judicial economy”
cases created no reliance interest of the sort normally given weight
in stare decisis analysis. See, e.g., Savage v. State, 297 Ga. 627, 641
(5) (b) (774 SE2d 624) (2015) (substantial reliance interests are most
common in contract and property cases where parties may have
acted in conformance with existing legal rules in order to conduct
transactions). Finally, the exercise of jurisdiction based solely on
notions of judicial economy has no concrete standards, such that
neither litigants nor the Court of Appeals have been able to predict
when this Court will exercise such jurisdiction. We believe it is thus
more workable for both litigants and appellate courts to apply clear
jurisdictional rules as set out in our Constitution and statutes,
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which do not depend on whether this Court believes that deciding a
particular case is more expedient than transferring the case.1 Cf.
Duke, 306 Ga. at 185-86 (4) (noting significant workability problems
presented when a court has no means of predicting when a case may
be snatched from its docket).
In sum, stare decisis factors weigh in favor of overruling these
precedents. Accordingly, we disapprove the following cases to the
extent that they purported to exercise this Court’s jurisdiction based
solely on judicial economy: Morrison, 284 Ga. at 112 (“Pretermitting
whether jurisdiction is proper in this Court, we have retained this
appeal for reasons of judicial economy.”); Nowlin, 278 Ga. at 240 n.1;
Gates v. Gates, 277 Ga. 175, 176 (1) (587 SE2d 32) (2003) (“We
conclude, therefore, that jurisdiction over this case lies in the Court
of Appeals. Nevertheless, we retain the case in the interests of
1 We also note that we have not retained a case based on “judicial
economy” in over a decade, and in fact have transferred or returned several
cases to the Court of Appeals invoking “judicial economy” in unpublished
orders since that time. See, e.g., McDaniel-Ivey v. A&S Repairs & Remodeling,
Case No. S19A0109 (Sept. 24, 2018) (returning appeal to Court of Appeals in
part because “judicial economy is not a proper basis for this Court’s
jurisdiction”).
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judicial economy, and will decide the tort immunity question which
we posed upon granting this interlocutory appeal.”); Bush v. State,
273 Ga. 861, 861 n.1 (548 SE2d 302) (2001) (“Although we would
ordinarily transfer to the Court of Appeals a case in which the issue
on which our jurisdiction was predicated was not ripe for decision,
we deem it appropriate under the circumstances of this case to
retain jurisdiction as a matter of judicial economy.”); Glynn County
Bd. of Tax Assessors v. Haller, 273 Ga. 649, 649 (1) (543 SE2d 699)
(2001) (“Since the grant of equitable relief is merely ancillary to the
legal issue, this appeal is not an equity case within our appellate
jurisdiction. In the interest of judicial economy, however, we will
resolve the legal issues raised on appeal.”); Little v. City of
Lawrenceville, 272 Ga. 340, 340 (528 SE2d 515) (2000) (“Although it
now appears that the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction of this case,
we have retained it for reasons of judicial economy.”); Flint Elec.
Membership Corp. v. Barrow, 271 Ga. 636, 636 n.1 (523 SE2d 10)
(1999) (“Although this Court is without original appellate
jurisdiction in this case, we take jurisdiction of it in the interest of
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judicial economy.”); Douglas v. Wages, 271 Ga. 616, 617 n.2 (523
SE2d 330) (1999) (“Despite our lack of initial appellate jurisdiction,
we have addressed the merits of appellants’ appeal in the interest of
judicial economy.”); Parker v. Peaceful Valley Property Owners Assn.,
271 Ga. 325, 325 n.1 (519 SE2d 440) (1999) (“Although our
jurisdiction in this restrictive covenant case is questionable . . . , we
retain this appeal in the interest of judicial economy.”); Akins v.
Couch, 271 Ga. 276, 277 n.1 (518 SE2d 674) (1999) (“The Court of
Appeals of Georgia generally exercises jurisdiction over similar
cases that seek rescission and damages. Nevertheless, because the
parties have submitted briefs and have had oral argument before
this Court, in the interests of judicial economy, we will retain the
case.”); Schmidt v. Schmidt, 270 Ga. 461, 461 (510 SE2d 810) (1999)
(“We now hold that . . . jurisdiction lies in the Court of Appeals of
Georgia. For reasons of judicial economy, we address the merits and
reverse . . . .”); Cline v. McMullan, 263 Ga. 321, 321 n.1 (431 SE2d
368) (1993) (“Jurisdiction of this case lies in the Court of Appeals,
but this court elected to hear this appeal in the interest of judicial
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economy.”); Beauchamp, 261 Ga. at 610 (2) n.1 (“We did not transfer
this case back to the Court of Appeals for reasons of judicial economy
and in order to reaffirm our earlier holdings that declare such
appeals to be beyond our appellate jurisdiction.”).
Because appeals of convictions for aggravated assault do not
fall within the scope of this Court’s subject matter jurisdiction, see
Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. VI, Sec. VI, Pars. II and III; OCGA § 15-3-
3.1, we transfer this appeal to the Court of Appeals.
Appeal transferred to the Court of Appeals. All the Justices
concur.
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