Thomas v. State

902 S.E.2d 566

THOMAS

v.The STATE.

S24A0174

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: May 29, 2024

Superior Court, Fulton County, Robert Charles McBurney, Judge

Howard Jarrett Weintraub, Sr., Law Office of Howard J. Weintraub, P.C., 4651 Woodstock Road, Suite 208-328, Roswell, Georgia 30075, Elizabeth Ann Brandenburg, Law Firm of Shein & Brandenburg, 2392 North Decatur Road, Decatur, Georgia 30033, Benjamin Black Alper, The Law Offices of Howard J. Weintraub, P.C., 1355 Peachtree Street, N.E., Suite 1250, Atlanta, Georgia 30309, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton. Deputy Attorney General, Clint Christopher Malcolm, Assistant Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Senior A.D.A., Michael Scott Carlson, A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, 136 Pryor Street SW, Third Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Jeffrey Michael Hawkins, Deputy

Chief A.D.A., Clayton County District Attorney’s Office, 9151 Tara Boulevard, 4th Floor, Jonesboro, Georgia 30236, for Appellee.

Bethel, Justice.

This Court granted the interlocutory application of Tyler Jarel Thomas, who timely sought review of a trial court order that vacated its earlier grant of his motion to suppress. Thomas argues that the end-of-term rule, which we have held imposes a term-based time restriction on a trial court’s authority over its interlocutory orders in criminal cases, should have barred the trial court’s reconsideration, even though a new trial had been granted in his case. But for the reasons explained below, we conclude that Thomas’s argument fails, so we affirm.

1. In February 2014, Thomas was indicted for the murder of Ashley Brown. Before his indictment, law enforcement executed a court order for Thomas’s phone records, including cell site location information (CSLI). At the time investigators obtained those records, access to them was governed by federal and state statutes. In 2014, while some federal courts held differently, "no appellate precedent binding in Georgia courts held that a request or demand by a governmental entity to a cell phone service provider that the provider produce its records related to a customer’s account constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment" to the United States Constitution. Lofton v. State, 310 Ga. 770, 776, 854 S.E.2d 690 (2021). In other words, at that time in Georgia courts, a court order was legally sufficient to obtain records like the ones at issue here; a warrant was unnecessary.¹

Nonetheless, Thomas moved to suppress the CSLI in June 2014, arguing that it was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The trial court agreed with Thomas and granted his motion, relying in part upon United States v. Davis, 754 F.3d 1205 (11th Cir. 2014) ("Davis I"), an Eleventh Circuit decision that held a warrant was necessary to obtain CSLI. But a year after it decided Davis I, the Eleventh Circuit reconsidered the case, reversing its position and holding that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not require a warrant to obtain CSLI. See United States v. Davis, 785 F.3d 498 (11th Cir. 2015) (deciding that a court order was sufficient to obtain CSLI from a service provider) ("Davis II").²

In May 2017, the day that voir dire was scheduled to begin, the State asked the trial court to reconsider its suppression order in light of the Eleventh Circuit’s reconsideration of Davis I. Thomas argued that the end-of-term rule prohibited the trial court’s reconsideration of the suppression order, even though the decisional law upon which the previous order relied had changed. While recognizing a change in the law underlying the suppression order, the trial court opined that the end-of-term rule, as articulated in Moon v. State, 287 Ga. 304, 696 S.E.2d 55 (2010), divested it of the authority to reconsider its own prior interlocutory ruling.

At trial, the jury found Thomas guilty of malice murder and related crimes. He timely filed a motion for new trial, which was granted by the trial court. We affirmed the grant of a new trial on the grounds that the State had committed a Brady violation, see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), by failing to disclose a deal with a witness. See State v. Thomas, 311 Ga. 407, 858 S.E.2d 52 (2021) ("Thomas I"). On appeal, the State did not challenge, and this Court, did not address, the trial court’s ruling suppressing the CSLI evidence.

Upon remand to the trial court, the State again moved for reconsideration of the CSLI suppression order. Thomas, meanwhile, reprised his end-of-term rule argument. But this time, the trial court agreed with the State,³ vacated the earlier suppression order, and held that the CSLI could be tendered at trial. In so holding, the trial court expressly rejected Thomas’s argument based on the end-of-term rule, explaining that reconsideration of the evidentiary ruling was proper because "[t]here is no final judgment in this case," "questions of suppression remain ripe and open for reconsideration," "no appellate court has opined on the question of the admissibility of the CSLI in this case," and the CSLI issue "has remained within the breast of the trial court since the inception of this case." This appeal followed.

[1, 2] 2. On appeal, Thomas argues, as he did below, that the end-of-term rule should have prohibited the trial court’s reconsideration of its order on his motion to suppress. Subject to certain exceptions, which are not applicable here, we have said that the end-of-term rule limits "a trial court’s inherent power to revoke interlocutory rulings" in criminal cases to the end of the term in which the ruling was entered.⁴ Kelly v. State, 315 Ga. 444, 447, 883 S.E.2d 363 (2023) (quoting Moon, 287 Ga. at 304, 696 S.E.2d 55). Because the order on the motion to suppress in this case was reconsidered several years after the end of the term in which it was granted, Thomas contends that the trial court’s reconsideration was improper. For its part, the State argues that the reconsideration was not improper, because there has been no final judgment in this case and we have also said that trial courts "retain[ ] broad discretion over interlocutory evidentiary rulings which may be modified at any time until entry of final judgment," not just until the end of the term in which they were entered. Ritter v. State, 272 Ga. 551, 553 (2), 532 S.E.2d 692 (2000) (holding that a trial court did not err by reconsidering an out-of-term interlocutory ruling after the declaration of a mistrial) (emphasis supplied). Thus, the issue before us is whether, after a new trial has been granted in a criminal case, a trial court is prohibited from reconsidering an interlocutory ruling that it entered in an earlier term.

[3] In civil cases, the end-of-term rule has been explicitly curtailed by statute. See OCGA § 9-11-6 (c) ("The continued existence or expiration of a term of court in no way affects the power of a court to do any act or take any proceeding in any civil action which has been pending before it, except as otherwise specifically provided by law."). Compare OCGA § 15-1-3 (6)-(7) ("Every court has power … [t]o amend and control its processes and orders, so as to make them conformable to law and justice … before final judgment.").⁵ But we have continued applying the end-of-term rule in criminal cases, even to interlocutory orders. See, e.g., Moon, 287 Ga. at 304, 696 S.E.2d 55; Hipp v. State, 293 Ga. 415, 417, 746 S.E.2d 95 (2013).

[4] We have consistently held, however, that when a new trial has been granted, trial courts are not prohibited from reconsidering their previous orders. See, e.g., Smith v. State, 292 Ga. 620, 622 (3), 740 S.E.2d 158 (2013) (citing Ritter, 272 Ga. at 553, 532 S.E.2d 692) (holding that, upon remand, a trial court is not "required to rehear all pretrial motions as though they had never before been considered," but that it has the authority to do so); Salisbury v. Grimes, 223 Ga. 776, 778, 158 S.E.2d 412 (1967) ("When appellant [is] granted a new trial, it wipe[s] the slate clean as if no previous conviction and sentence had existed."). Under the reasoning of Ritter and Smith, therefore, because the final judgment in this case was vacated by the grant of a new trial, the trial court may reconsider rulings from earlier terms.

Thomas resists this conclusion, arguing that the end-of-term rule’s application should not be limited by the grant of a new trial. Rather, he would have us hold that, upon remand following our decision in Thomas I, his case reverted to the posture it occupied the moment before his trial began, with all prior rulings intact and the trial court lacking authority to reassess them. Under Thomas’s view of the end-of-term rule, the trial court would be prohibited from revisiting its earlier suppression ruling because that ruling was entered years before its reconsideration. In support of this contention, Thomas asserts that Ritter and Smith are unsound and should be considered with "caution." He does not argue that we should overrule those cases; instead, he asserts that Ritter’s precedential value should be "limited" because, he says, the cases it relies upon do not support its ultimate conclusion. Thomas also argues that Ritter should not be followed because of its apparent tension with Moon, Ritter permitting reconsideration of interlocutory rulings before entry of final judgment, see Ritter, 272 Ga. at 553 (2), 532 S.E.2d 692, and Moon broadly holding that "a trial court’s inherent power to revoke interlocutory rulings … ceases with the end of the term," Moon, 287 Ga. at 304, 696 S.E.2d 55.

Thomas’s criticism of the decisional law upon which Ritter relied—specifically, Tucker v. State, 231 Ga. App. 210, 498 S.E.2d 774 (1998), and Bradley v. Tattnall Bank, 170 Ga. App. 821, 318 S.E.2d 657...