Moreland v. State

690 S.E.2d 150, 286 Ga. 545, 2010 Fulton County D. Rep. 185, 2010 Ga. LEXIS 85

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: January 25, 2010
• Docket: S09A1839
• Status: Published

Opinion

THOMPSON, Justice.

Defendant was convicted of felony murder, and this Court affirmed his conviction on appeal. Moreland v. State, 279 Ga. 641 (619 SE2d 626) (2005). Thereafter, defendant filed several motions, including a “motion to address against void judgment” in which he argued that the indictment was void. Citing Williams v. State, 283 Ga. 94 (656 SE2d 144) (2008), which pre-dated Chester v. State, 284 Ga. 162 (664 SE2d 220) (2008), the trial court dismissed defendant’s motions on the ground that OCGA § 17-9-4 does not authorize an attack on a criminal conviction. 1 This appeal followed. We affirm.

In Harper v. State, 286 Ga. 216 (686 SE2d 786) (2009), this Court overruled Chester to the extent that Chester allowed OCGA § 17-9-4 to be used to challenge a void conviction. In so doing, this Court announced that it was reverting to its pre-Chester jurisprudence and that, therefore, a petition to vacate or modify a judgment of conviction will not be recognized as an appropriate remedy in a criminal case. Given our holding in Harper, we conclude that the trial court properly dismissed defendant’s motions.

Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur. Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Bettieanne C. Hart, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, for appellee.

1 The trial court did, however, correct the judgment to reflect that defendant was acquitted of Count 4 of the indictment, and that Counts 5 and 6 were placed on the dead docket. The original judgment erroneously stated that Counts 4 and 5 were placed on the dead docket.