Draper L. Lucas v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: May 5, 2026
• Docket: A26A0518
• Status: Published

Opinion

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________ May 05, 2026

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A26A0518. LUCAS v. THE STATE.

Draper Lucas was tried by a jury and convicted of two counts of aggravated child molestation, one count of aggravated sexual battery, and one count of incest. Lucas appealed to this Court from the trial court’s order denying his motion for new trial. At the motion for new trial hearing, Lucas called into question whether one of the special conditions of probation that was ultimately included in his corrected final disposition order was sufficiently clear under the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court implicitly rejected Lucas’s argument by including the special condition at issue in the corrected final disposition order. We conclude that the case should be transferred to the Supreme Court of Georgia. Because Lucas’s argument calls into question the constitutionality of the special condition of probation, and the trial court implicitly rejected this constitutional argument, it appears that jurisdiction may lie in the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the case may ultimately be resolved on other grounds. See Harrison v. Wigington, 269 Ga. 388, 388 (497 SE2d 568) (1998) (“If a constitutional question is raised and ruled on below, [the Supreme] Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction, and this is true, although upon a consideration of the entire case, [the Supreme] [C]ourt determines that a decision upon such constitutional questions is not necessary to a proper solution of the case, and makes no decision thereon.” (punctuation omitted)). As the Supreme Court has the ultimate responsibility for determining appellate jurisdiction, see Saxton v. Coastal Dialysis & Med. Clinic, 267 Ga. 177, 178 (476 SE2d 587) (1996), this case is hereby TRANSFERRED to the Supreme Court for disposition.

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________ 05/05/2026 I certify that the above is a true extract from the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk.