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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 Monday, January 10, 2011 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 . LOYD V. THE STATE (S10P1772) The Supreme Court of Georgia has unanimously upheld the death sentence given to Roger Lynn Loyd for the 1998 murder and sexual assault of 3-year-old Tevin Hammonds. Today's 27-page opinion, written by Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, provides graphic details of crimes committed against a child. According to the evidence, the night of Dec. 1, 1998, Faye Hammonds went next door, leaving her 3-year-old son, Tevin, at her apartment in Crisp County with Roger Lynn Loyd. When she returned, Loyd and the child were gone. The next morning, Hammonds found Loyd and asked where the boy was. Loyd said he didn't know but offered to join in the search. Later that morning, he told police officers there was no need to continue their search for Tevin. "He's dead, I killed him," Loyd said. With Loyd's help, officers found Tevin's body next to a dumpster near the State Farmers Market. Loyd was arrested for murder and taken to the Crisp County jail where he gave more statements to officers. According to the evidence at trial, Loyd told them he was angry at Tevin's mother for rebuffing his advances. He described how he took the child down a dirt road into the bedroom of an abandoned trailer. After attempting but failing to anally rape the child, Loyd told investigators he orally sodomized him and made the child then perform oral sex on him. Loyd provided details, signed a hand-written statement and drew diagrams of the routes the two had taken and the places where the events occurred. After Tevin gagged and got sick, Loyd had him put his clothes back on, walked him to a mound of dirt next to some dumpsters and told the little boy to lie down. Tevin began to cry before Loyd said he grabbed Tevin's "esophagus and squeezed it so he

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could not breathe." Once satisfied Tevin was dead, Loyd hid the child's body under a discarded political campaign sign. In February 1999, Loyd was indicted for murder, kidnapping, cruelty to children, aggravated sodomy, enticing a child for indecent purposes and reckless conduct. The State announced it would seek the death penalty. In 2000, during the third day of jury selection, Loyd announced in open court he was "ready to end this" and wanted "to plead guilty to this crap today." As the judge tried to quiet him and get him to speak to his attorneys, Loyd said, "it doesn't matter to me if you give me what the State is looking for, because from what I done to the 3-year-old child, that's exactly what I deserve..." He then pleaded guilty to all counts but reckless conduct and one count of aggravated sodomy. At the sentencing trial, the State presented evidence that Loyd had also pleaded guilty to a 1987 rape in Illinois of a 13-year-old girl; admitted that for more than a year, he had daily assaulted a 4-year-old girl by anally raping and sodomizing her; and told police he had molested as many as 15 children. On Oct. 19, 2000, Judge L.A. McConnell, Jr., sentenced Loyd to death. His lawyers filed a motion for a new trial, and during a 2001 hearing on the matter, Loyd passed a note to his attorney saying he wanted to withdraw his guilty pleas. In March 2010, the judge denied that motion and his motion for a new trial. Loyd then appealed to the state Supreme Court. In today's opinion, the high court finds that the evidence "was sufficient to enable any rational trier of fact to find Loyd guilty" beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. Although his attorney argued Loyd's guilty pleas were not made "knowingly and voluntarily" because he was "totally stressed out" and not "thinking straight," Loyd failed to make a motion to withdraw them until the court term following the term in which he was sentenced. "It is well settled that when the term of court has expired in which a defendant was sentenced pursuant to a guilty plea, the trial court lacks jurisdiction to allow the withdrawal of the plea," the opinion says. Furthermore, even if he had filed the motion in time, the court was not required to allow him to withdraw his pleas. After sentence has been pronounced, "a guilty plea may be withdrawn only to correct a manifest injustice." The trial court did not err, the opinion states, in denying Loyd's request for a postponement to study a psychological report in preparation for the sentencing phase of his trial. At his sentencing trial, the judge heard from three mental health professionals who testified that Loyd had a long-standing history of severe mental illness and had to be hospitalized when he was only 9. The opinion rejects other claims of err or made by Loyd's attorneys. In conclusion, the Court addresses its requirement to consider whether the death sentence given to Loyd is disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases. "Given the merciless and calculated nature of this murder, the sentencer's reaction was not excessive," the opinion states. "After considering both the crime and the defendant and after comparing the evidence and sentence in this case with those of previous murder cases reviewed, we conclude that the death sentence in Loyd's case is not excessive or disproportionate punishment within the meaning of Georgia law and is not unconstitutional." Attorneys for Appellant (Loyd): Jeffrey Grube, David Morgan, III Attorneys for Appellee (State): Denise Fachini, District Attorney, Cheri Lee Nichols, Asst. D.A., Thurbert Baker, Attorney General, Mary Beth Westmoreland, Dep. A.G., Beth Burton, Sr. Asst. A.B., Richard Tangum, Asst. A.G.

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****************************************************************************** IN OTHER CASES, the Supreme Court of Georgia has upheld murder convictions and life prison sentences for: * Nevarro Brinson (Dougherty Co.) * Dennis Clemons (McDuffie Co.) * Roy Crawford (Douglas Co.) * Floyd Jones (Bulloch Co.) * Harold Lee Render (DeKalb Co.) BRINSON V. THE STATE (S10A1644) CLEMONS V. THE STATE (S10A1935) CRAWFORD V. THE STATE (S10A1559) JONES V. THE STATE (S10A1583) RENDER V. THE STATE (S10A1399)

****************************************************************************** IN DISCIPLINARY MATTERS, the Supreme Court has ordered the disbarment of attorney: * Pat Eugene Belcher II IN THE MATTER OF: PAT EUGENE BELCHER II (S10Y2081)

The Court has accepted a petition for voluntary surrender of license

Download January 10, 2011 - SUMMARIES for NOTEWORTHY OPINIONS.pdf

Georgia Law