Preview:

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 Friday, July 13, 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 . THE STATE V. MARTINEZ (S12A0916) The Supreme Court of Georgia has unanimously reversed a lower court's ruling that threw out the guilty plea of an immigrant from Mexico on the ground his attorney had failed to warn him he could be deported as a result of his plea. In October 2010, Jose Alonso Martinez entered a guilty plea to aggravated battery in Cobb County Superior Court. He'd been arrested and charged with breaking his girlfriend's arm during a domestic dispute. Although Martinez is not a U.S. citizen, he had become a permanent legal resident in 2008. His attorney worked out a plea bargain whereby he would be sentenced to seven years on probation in exchange for his guilty plea. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Padilla v. Kentucky that a non-citizen's lawyer must give adequate advice on the risks of deportation before the defendant enters a guilty plea. According to both parties' briefs, Martinez's plea attorney inaccurately told him he did not need to be concerned about the effect of his guilty plea on his immigration status. However, during the plea hearing, the judge asked Martinez if he understood that he was pleading guilty to a serious felony charge of aggravated battery and that sometime in the future, the federal government "will take action to deport you even though you are a legal resident alien...." Martinez, who had an interpreter, answered yes. "Do you still wish to enter your plea even though it will result in your deportation," the judge asked. "Yes," Martinez replied. The trial judge found that Martinez had freely and voluntarily entered his guilty plea. Subsequently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Martinez into custody, and he now faces deportation and banishment from the United States.

1

In July 2011, Martinez filed a petition for a "writ of habeas corpus"

Download July 13, 2012 - SUMMARIES for NOTEWORTHY OPINIONS.pdf

Georgia Law