Larry Harper v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: June 22, 2015
• Docket: A15D0416
• Status: Published

Opinion

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________ June 10, 2015

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A15D0416. LARRY HARPER v. THE STATE.

Larry Harper is charged with murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, concealing the death of another, and tampering with evidence. He filed a number of pro se pretrial motions, including several motions challenging the sufficiency of the indictment, a motion challenging his arrest warrant, and a motion for out-of-time appeal from an order denying a motion to suppress incriminating statements. As a general rule, a right of appeal lies from a final judgment; that is, where the case is no longer pending below. See OCGA § 5-6-34 (a) (1). The Supreme Court has created limited exceptions to this rule in criminal cases. See Hubbard v. State, 254 Ga. 694 (333 SE2d 827) (1985) (statutory speedy trial claim); Patterson v. State, 248 Ga. 875 (287 SE2d 7) (1982) (double jeopardy). But Harper does not seek to appeal the denial of a statutory speedy trial or double jeopardy claim. Accordingly, he was required to comply with the interlocutory appeal procedure, including obtaining a certificate of immediate review from the trial court, to obtain appellate review at this juncture. See Ivey v. State, 210 Ga. App. 782 (437 SE2d 810) (1993) (appeal of order overruling special demurrer required compliance with interlocutory appeal procedure).1 Because Harper failed to comply with the requisite procedures for obtaining

1 Although Harper filed an application for discretionary appeal, compliance with the discretionary appeal statute, OCGA § 5-6-35, does not excuse a party seeking appellate review of an interlocutory order from complying with the additional requirements of OCGA § 5-6-34 (b). See Bailey v. Bailey, 266 Ga. 832 (471 SE2d 213) (1996). interlocutory review, this premature application is hereby DISMISSED.

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia 06/10/2015 Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________ 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.