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Supreme Court of Georgia
Jane Hansen, Public Information Officer 244 Washington Street, Suite 572 Atlanta, Georgia 30334 404-651-9385 hansenj@gasupreme.us

SUMMARIES OF OPINIONS
Published Tuesday, April 24, 2012 Please note: Opinion summaries are prepared by the Public Information Office for the general public and news media. Summaries are not prepared for every opinion released by the Court, but only for those cases considered of great public interest or in which a Justice dissented or the Court reviewed a case from the Court of Appeals. Opinion summaries are not to be considered as official opinions of the Court. The full opinions are available on the Supreme Court website at www.gasupreme.us . WILLIAMS V. THE STATE (S12A0594) A young man who was 20 years old when he shot and killed a restaurant owner during an attempted armed robbery has lost his appeal to the state Supreme Court. Michael Eugene Williams argued his sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole constituted "cruel and unusual punishment" under the Georgia and U.S. Constitutions. "While the Supreme Court of the United States has recently held that juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to life without parole for the commission of non-homicide crimes, Graham v. Florida...(2010), that rule does not apply in this case because appellant was over the age of 18 when he committed the crime and because he committed a homicide," Justice Robert Benham writes in today's unanimous decision. According to the evidence at trial, Jone Cheung, owner of The House of Cheung King of Wings in Richmond County, was preparing to close the night of May 30, 2009, when Williams and a co-defendant entered the restaurant to determine how many people were there. After deciding it was nearly empty, Williams went back into the restaurant with a woman who was also a co-defendant. Williams went into the bathroom to put on a mask, a black skull cap and a green bandana. According to prosecutors, the woman approached Cheung with a dollar to purchase a cup of tea. Williams came out of the bathroom, jumped across the counter and demanded money. He then pointed a gun at Cheung's face and shot him between the eyes, instantly killing him.

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Williams turned himself in within 24 hours and confessed to investigators with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office that he had killed Cheung. He was indicted for malice murder, felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. In Georgia, prior to April 29, 2009, the state could only seek the death penalty or life in prison with the possibility of parole for a person convicted of murder. The state could only impose life without parole in cases where it had first sought the death penalty, which requires proving the presence of an aggravating circumstance. In 2009, however, the Georgia General Assembly amended Official Code of Georgia

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Georgia Law