NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: February 17, 2026
S25A1404. SAMUELS v. THE STATE.
LAND, Justice.
Appellant Dyanta Derall Samuels challenges his 2022
convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with
two separate incidents: the November 23, 2020 shooting death of
Kareem Smalls and a June 20, 2020 shooting involving Jamie
Delaney. 1 Samuels argues that there was insufficient evidence to
1 On January 5, 2022, a Chatham County grand jury indicted Samuels
for malice murder (Count 3), felony murder (Count 4), aggravated assault as to Delaney (Count 1), aggravated assault as to Smalls (Count 5), three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Counts 2, 6, and 7), and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer (Count 8). This Court previously denied Samuels’s application for interlocutory appeal. At a trial from August 8 to August 19, 2022, the jury found Samuels guilty of all charges. The trial court sentenced Samuels to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole for Count 3, five years for Count 6 to be served consecutively to Count 3, ten years for Count 1 to be served consecutively to Count 6, five years for Count 2 to be served consecutively to Count 1, and one year for Count 8 to be served consecutively to Count 1. Count 4 (felony murder) was vacated by operation of law, Count 5 (aggravated assault) merged with support his convictions, that the trial court erred in admitting
evidence of his drug dealing, that the trial court plainly erred in
admitting a detective’s testimony regarding recorded jail phone
calls, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to that
testimony, and that these errors collectively prejudiced him. For the
following reasons, we affirm.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the record
shows as follows. On June 20, 2020, Delaney and her six-year-old
daughter were driving in Chatham County when a silver Toyota
Camry with dealer tags “almost T-boned” their vehicle. Delaney
continued driving and the Toyota “zigzag[ged]” down the road before
cutting her off and stopping at a stoplight in front of a convenience
store. The driver of the Toyota, whom Delaney described as a man
in his thirties or early forties, got out of his car and yelled while
Count 3, and Count 7 (possession of firearm during the commission of a felony) merged with Count 6. On August 22, 2022, Samuels filed a motion for new trial, which was amended by new counsel on March 14, 2025. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. On May 12, 2025, Samuels filed a notice of appeal. The case was docketed to this Court’s August 2025 term and submitted for a decision on the briefs. 2 walking towards Delaney’s car. Delaney began to drive around the
Toyota, and the driver pulled out a gun from the Toyota and fired
three shots at Delaney’s car as she drove away. Delaney was
uninjured. Surveillance footage from a nearby convenience store,
which was played for the jury, shows the Toyota driver stop in the
road, step out of the car, and motion towards the car behind him.
The car behind the Toyota then drove around him. The driver of the
Toyota then briefly reentered the Toyota and exited again, looked to
his left, and shot at the other car as it drove away. The driver then
got back into the Toyota and drove out of frame. Although no arrest
was made, two shell casings were recovered from the scene.
Delaney did not know the driver of the Toyota. Approximately
one year later, Delaney was shown a photographic lineup that
included Samuels, but she did not identify any of the people in the
lineup as the shooter. At trial, Delaney testified that Samuels was
“not the shooter.” However, Kelly Jeffers, who knew and interacted
with Samuels, later identified the shooter in the video as Samuels.
At trial, another associate of Samuels’s, Samantha Hammack,
3 denied identifying Samuels as the man in the surveillance footage
and testified that she only told investigators that “it could be”
Samuels, who drove a “dark gray” Toyota Camry, not a “light gray”
car. Body camera footage from Hammack’s interview with
investigators, which was played for the jury, indicated that
Hammack told investigators that the man in the surveillance
footage “look[ed] a lot like” Samuels and that she had seen him drive
a car “that’s very, very similar … a silver car like that.”
Several months later, on the evening of November 23, 2020,
Carita Scott was talking with Kareem Smalls outside of her
apartment in the Kayton Homes area of Savannah. While Scott and
Smalls talked, a red Dodge Charger with two occupants “circled”
them “three or four times.” Scott testified that, about 20 minutes
after talking with Smalls, she heard a “couple of gunshots.” Scott
then saw a man wearing black clothing and black and yellow shoes
come “running” from the direction of the gunshots. The man got into
the passenger side of the “dark red” Charger that Scott had seen
earlier, which “sped off” from the scene.
4 Grady Shaw and Frederick Kinlaw also witnessed the
shooting. Shaw testified that he was standing on his porch and
talking to Kinlaw, his neighbor across the street, when Smalls’s van
passed between them down the street. Shaw then “heard a
commotion” that sounded like “somebody arguing” and saw the
lights on Smalls’s van turn on as a man approached the front of the
van and shot into it. Kinlaw and Shaw then saw Smalls’s van “fly up
the street” and crash into a church van. Smalls got out of his van
and “collapsed” in the street. Smalls died from his gunshot wounds.
Kinlaw and Shaw also saw a “bright orange” or “burgundy” Dodge
Charger leaving the area immediately after the shooting.
On November 24, an investigator with the Savannah Police
Department identified a red Dodge Charger in the Kayton Homes
area during the time of the Smalls shooting using surveillance
cameras. The Charger, which had South Carolina tags, was
identified as a vehicle owned by a car rental service. GPS records
from the rental company placed the Charger arriving at the scene of
the Smalls shooting at approximately 11:01 p.m. on November 23
5 and leaving the area six minutes later, less than one minute before
police received a 911 call about the shooting. Investigators
determined that the Charger was rented to James Harrell and his
wife at the time of the shooting. Investigators went to the car rental
location, where they observed Harrell return the Charger and leave
the rental office with a red Chrysler 300. Harrell testified at trial
that he would regularly rent vehicles for Samuels in his wife’s name,
that he returned the Charger and rented the Chrysler 300 for
Samuels, and that he delivered the Chrysler 300 to Samuels.
That same day, Savannah police attempted a traffic stop on the
Chrysler 300, which by that time had been delivered by Harrell to
Samuels and had pulled into a gas station. When officers
approached the Chrysler, Samuels “revv[ed] the engine real
aggressively” and started to drive away. Believing that Samuels
intended to flee, an officer broke the back windshield of the Chrysler
with his nightstick to distract Samuels and to “mark” the vehicle for
aerial surveillance. Samuels then led officers on an “extremely
reckless” high-speed chase onto and off Interstate 16. After getting
6 stuck on a dirt road, Samuels abandoned the Chrysler, fled on foot,
and hid in a nearby warehouse where he was eventually discovered
and taken into custody.
During his custodial interview, which was played for the jury,
Samuels told police that he was “high” when police approached him
in the Chrysler, and that he fled because he thought police were
shooting at him when the back windshield was broken. Samuels
admitted that he possessed an “AR pistol” but claimed that he threw
it onto the highway during the car chase. Samuels also admitted to
driving a red Dodge Charger prior to the Chrysler and to being at
Kayton Homes when Smalls was shot. Samuels claimed, however,
that he was “smokin’ weed” with an unidentified group of people for
a “good 45 minutes” or “a good 20 to 15” minutes before Smalls was
shot. When Samuels “heard some shots” he “got the f**k on” because
he knew police were coming, but he did not remember how he left.
Samuels stated that he “heard” that Smalls had been shot and killed
that night.
A GBI expert witness testified that the shell casings recovered
7 from the Smalls shooting were fired from the same weapon as the
shell casings recovered from the Delaney shooting, and that both
sets of shell casings were fired from the same weapon, a Glock .45
Auto. During a search of Samuels’s apartment, law enforcement
found a box of .45-caliber ammunition and a gun box for a Glock 23
.40-caliber handgun, but no gun. A search of Samuels’s cell phone
also revealed photos of several Glock firearms of unknown caliber
and a silver sedan with “similar features” and resembling the “same
make and model” of the vehicle used in the Delaney shooting.
The State played for the jury several jail calls made by
Samuels. During one of these calls, made prior to Samuels’s arrest
for Smalls’s murder, Samuels directed his girlfriend to “go back”
home “and pack up all my s**t.”
2. Samuels argues that the evidence was insufficient to sustain
his convictions as a matter of Georgia statutory law under OCGA §
24-14-6.2 (“To warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the
2 We do not review sufficiency for Counts 4, 5 and 7 because those counts
were either vacated by operation of law or merged. See Anderson v. State, 299
8 proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt,
but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the
guilt of the accused.”). We disagree.
“Under Georgia statutory law, a conviction may rest solely on
circumstantial evidence if that evidence ‘exclude[s] every other
reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.’” Rashad
v. State, 318 Ga. 199, 206 (2024) (quoting OCGA § 24-14-6). “Not
every hypothesis is a reasonable one, however, and the evidence
need not exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis – only
those that are reasonable.” Id. (cleaned up). “Further, whether any
alternative hypotheses are reasonable and whether the
circumstantial evidence excludes any such hypotheses are questions
for the jury and we will not disturb the jury’s findings on those
questions unless they are insupportable as a matter of law.” Lee v.
State, S25A1002, slip op. at *3 (Ga. Dec. 9, 2025) (2025 WL 3520150)
Ga. 193, 196 n.4 (2016) (defendant’s claims about sufficiency of evidence were moot for crimes that were vacated by operation of law or that merged with murder). Samuels does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence as to Count 8. 9 (cleaned up). “And we have observed that such questions about the
reasonableness of hypotheses that are for the jury to decide include
the possibility of another perpetrator.” Id. (cleaned up).
Turning first to the aggravated assault (Count 1) and
possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 2)
convictions in connection with the Delaney shooting, Samuels
argues that the surveillance footage was “grainy,” there was no cell-
phone evidence tying Samuels to the location of the shooting, and
Delaney denied that Samuels was the shooter. However, Jeffers
admitted to identifying Samuels as the individual in the silver
Toyota Camry on the surveillance footage of the Delaney shooting.
And although Hammack denied identifying Samuels as the shooter
at trial, she testified that she had seen Samuels drive a “dark gray”
Toyota Camry. Despite Samuels’s protests regarding Jeffers’s and
Hammack’s testimony and Delaney’s testimony that Samuels was
not the shooter, “it is axiomatic that resolving evidentiary conflicts
and assessing witness credibility are within the exclusive province
of the jury.” McCoy v. State, 315 Ga. 536, 543 (2023) (citation
10 omitted). Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient to support
Samuels’s convictions on Counts 1 and 2. See OCGA § 24-14-8 (“The
testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a
fact.”).
Turning next to the malice murder (Count 3) and possession of
a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 6) convictions in
connection with the Smalls shooting, Samuels argues that the
evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he shot and
killed Smalls because it did not exclude the reasonable hypothesis
that Samuels was merely present at Kayton Homes when Smalls
was shot by someone else. Samuels highlights inconsistencies in the
evidence, as well as evidence that was consistent with his
alternative hypothesis. But as explained above, it is the jury’s role
to resolve evidentiary conflicts and assess witness credibility. See
McCoy, 315 Ga. at 543. Moreover, Samuels’s arguments about the
State’s failure to present certain types of evidence, including the gun
used in the shooting, eyewitness testimony identifying him as the
shooter, or a confession, are unavailing because “there is no
11 requirement that the State prove its case with any particular sort of
evidence, so long as the evidence presented is competent.” Weston v.
State, 320 Ga. 472, 474 (2024) (citations and punctuation omitted).
Here, the jury heard testimony that GPS tracking data placed
a red Dodge Charger that had been rented for Samuels at the scene
during the shooting and leaving immediately thereafter. Samuels
admitted he was present during the shooting and gave inconsistent
answers as to how long he was present before the shooting took
place. Scott testified that a red Charger circled her and Smalls
several times shortly before the shooting and that an individual ran
from the direction of the shooting and fled in a red Charger. Other
eyewitnesses also saw a red or orange Charger leave the scene
immediately following the shooting. An expert witness analyzed the
shell casings collected from both the Delaney and Smalls shootings
and determined that the firearm used in the Delaney shooting was
the same firearm used in the Smalls shooting. At least one associate
of Samuels identified him as the individual in the surveillance
footage of the Delaney shooting, and a photo of a silver sedan with
12 similar features to the Toyota Camry was found on Samuels’s cell
phone. Ammunition was found at Samuels’s apartment matching
the caliber of bullet that killed Smalls, photos of multiple Glock
firearms were found on Samuels’s cell phone, and Samuels admitted
to throwing a gun out of the window during his car chase. The
evidence presented at trial therefore showed not only that Samuels
was at the scene of the Smalls shooting, but also that he fled in a
high-speed chase after the shooting, threw away a gun during the
pursuit, and used the murder weapon in a prior shooting. Those
indicia of guilt strongly suggest that Samuels was a perpetrator and
not merely present. Accordingly, there was sufficient evidence from
which the jury could reject as unreasonable Samuels’s alternate
theory that another individual shot Smalls and instead find beyond
a reasonable doubt that Samuels shot and killed Smalls. See Wilson
v. State, 319 Ga. 550, 553–54 (2024) (evidence sufficient to support
defendant’s murder conviction where defendant was in the vicinity
of the shooting, he was seen driving car connected to shooting a few
minutes before and a short distance away from the shooting, and a
13 shell casing found at the scene was ejected from the same firearm as
a shell casing found in that car); Payne v. State, 273 Ga. 317, 318
(2001) (evidence sufficient to authorize rational trier of fact to find
accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murder and possession
of a knife and to exclude every reasonable inference and hypothesis
except guilt of accused, despite lack of any eyewitness testimony
that defendant stabbed victim or that he possessed a knife).
Therefore, this claim fails.
3. Samuels argues that the trial court abused its discretion in
admitting evidence of his drug dealing activity. When this issue was
argued in the trial court, the prosecutor stated that during a drug
trafficking investigation of Samuels, law enforcement identified
three people who knew Samuels and those people identified Samuels
as the man on the video of the Delaney shooting. The prosecutor
argued that those three people, Gilberto Hernandez, Hammack, and
Jeffers, were connected to Samuels as “either drug purchasers from
him or a drug supplier to him” and that “the fact that [Samuels] is
involved in some level of drug transactions is relevant in this case
14 … and is the connection between these individuals and Mr.
Samuels.” Samuels argued that “[d]rug trafficking is not relevant in
this case” and that evidence of Samuels’s drug activity was not
intrinsic and was instead a way to “simply to get in the trafficking.”
The trial court found that because the witnesses were “coming in
here to identify Mr. Samuels in connection with the first incident,
the first shooting, which is connected to the second shooting by the
ballistics evidence,” the testimony that Samuels’s “relationship to
these folks might involve drugs” was “intrinsic to this case” as the
“only means the State has to identify Mr. Samuels in their theory of
the case.” The trial court further found that “[OCGA § 24-4-]403
doesn’t keep it out either” because while the evidence “is certainly
prejudicial to Mr. Samuels … it is not unfairly prejudicial to the
point that it outweighs the probative value.”
During opening statements, the prosecutor stated that the
video of the Delaney shooting “was shown to two individuals known
to purchase narcotics from the Defendant.” Outside the presence of
the jury, Samuels moved for a mistrial, arguing that as a result of
15 the statement, Samuels “no longer has the presumption of
innocence. Now he’s a drug dealer sitting at the table accused of
[m]urder.” The trial court denied the motion for mistrial, stating
that “the way the witnesses who identified [Samuels] in the video
know him to be able to identify him is intrinsic to … the case” and is
“being admitted to tell the story of how’s he’s identified … in these
cases.” The jury returned to the courtroom and opening statements
resumed, with the State noting that the witnesses “know [Samuels]
because they purchase narcotics from him” but that “this is not a
drug trial. This is a trial about [m]urder and how they connect those
two individuals.”
During trial, Hernandez testified that he met Samuels in early
2021, and that he met with Samuels “once or twice a day” over eight
months to “buy[] stuff from him.” The prosecutor then asked, “What
did you buy from him?” and Samuels’s trial counsel objected. Before
the trial court could rule on the objection, Hernandez answered
“Just a couple of pills. And that’s it.” Samuels moved to strike
Hernandez’s answer. The trial court denied Samuels’s motion,
16 stating that it would let the testimony in “to allow the State to
attempt to prove the nature and closeness of the relationship.” Later
in his testimony, Hernandez denied ever telling investigators that
the individual in the surveillance footage of the Delaney shooting
looked like Samuels. Jeffers testified that she knew Samuels by the
name “Black.” When the prosecutor asked Jeffers about the nature
of her relationship with Samuels, Jeffers testified that she “sold him
drugs … [a]t least twice a month” for a year. Hammack was not
asked and did not provide any detail about the nature of her and
Samuels’s relationship.
Samuels argues that the evidence of his alleged drug dealing
activity was inadmissible as intrinsic evidence because it was not
linked to the charged crimes.3 “It is within the trial court’s sound
discretion to determine whether to admit such evidence, so we
review a trial court’s ruling admitting evidence as intrinsic for an
abuse of that discretion.” Harris v. State, 310 Ga. 372, 377–78 (2020)
3 Whether this evidence could have been properly admitted under OCGA
§ 24-4-404(b) is not at issue in this case, and the State does not contend that it gave the notice required for Rule 404(b) evidence. 17 (cleaned up). Even if a trial court does abuse its discretion in
admitting evidence, that error warrants reversal “only if it was
harmful.” Jivens v. State, 317 Ga. 859, 863 (2023). “The test for
determining nonconstitutional harmless error is whether it is highly
probable that the error did not contribute to the verdict.” Id. (cleaned
up). In considering whether a trial court’s error was harmful, “we
weigh the evidence as we would expect reasonable jurors to have
done so, as opposed to assuming that they took the most pro-guilt
possible view of every bit of evidence in the case.” Boothe v. State,
293 Ga. 285, 289 (2013).
Here, even assuming that the trial court abused its discretion
in admitting evidence of Samuels’s alleged drug dealing activity as
intrinsic, it is highly probable that any such error did not contribute
to the verdict. As detailed in Division 2, the circumstantial evidence
properly admitted against Samuels was strong, and although
Samuels’s alleged drug activity was “certainly not helpful” to his
case, the details “were not unusually inflammatory.” See Roberts v.
State, 315 Ga. 229, 239 (2022) (concluding that “the evidence that
18 was properly admitted against Roberts, although circumstantial,
was quite strong,” such that “it was highly probable” that the
improperly admitted “extra details of the armed robbery did not
contribute to the verdicts”). And although Samuels argues in his
brief that the evidence of his alleged drug activity was harmful
because the State emphasized it in opening statements and closing
arguments,4 the State lessened any harm in opening statements by
clarifying to the jury that “this is not a drug trial. This is a trial
about [m]urder and how they connect those two individuals.” Cf.
Floyd v. State, 321 Ga. 717, 726 (2025) (concluding that any error in
admitting gang-related evidence was harmless where witness
“immediately clarified his statement”). As for closing arguments, the
prosecutor’s statement that Samuels called Jeffers “a snitch” and
“[l]iken[ed] her to a man who was murdered for talking” made no
4 Samuels also points to the State’s explanation of a jail phone call where
he referred to Jeffers as the “New Jack City” movie character “Nino Brown” as evidence of harm. These references to “Nino Brown,” however, were made by the prosecutor during a sidebar conference over whether to admit these jail phone calls and were not made in the presence of the jury. When Detective Patrick Skinner was later asked, in the presence of the jury, to explain why Samuels had referred to Jeffers as “Nino Brown,” he made no reference to drug activity. 19 reference to Samuels’s drug activity, only Jeffers’s. Under these
circumstances, we conclude that it is highly probable that any
erroneously admitted evidence of Samuels’s drug activity did not
contribute to the jury’s verdict. See Jackson v. State, 306 Ga. 69, 80–
81 (2019) (concluding that harm from the erroneous admission of
defendant’s prior bad act was minimal because, among other
reasons, the record failed to show that the prosecutor emphasized
that evidence in his closing argument).
4. Samuels argues that the trial court plainly erred in
admitting Detective Patrick Skinner’s commentary on Samuels’s jail
phone calls because it was cumulative of Samuels’s own statements
on the recordings, it was not relevant, and it was lay witness opinion
testimony that did not satisfy OCGA § 24-7-701(a). Samuels also
argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to
Detective Skinner’s testimony.
Detective Skinner testified that, as part of his investigation, he
reviewed recorded jail communications made by Samuels. During
Detective Skinner’s direct testimony, the State played a series of jail
20 calls between Samuels and others in which the Smalls shooting was
discussed. In one call, Samuels’s girlfriend told him that “they” were
trying to “charge” Samuels with “[w]hatever happened in
November” and that “it’s on the news.” In response, Samuels asked
his girlfriend whether “[t]hey have my face on there.” Later in the
phone call, Samuels’s girlfriend added in another caller named “J-
man,” and Samuels told him, “I need a lawyer.” After “J-man” left
the call, Samuels asked his girlfriend to read “everything they’re
saying” on the news. When asked whether Samuels “ever den[ied]
committing the murder when he is told he’s being charged with it”
on the jail phone call, Detective Skinner testified “no.”
The State later played another jail call between Samuels and
a male caller about Samuels’s conversation with his girlfriend and
the new charges. When asked whether Samuels denied killing
Smalls during the call, Detective Skinner testified “[n]o, he does
not.”
The State then played a jail phone call between Samuels and a
male caller in which the caller told Samuels there was a video of him
21 “dumping out” at “516 Veteran’s, Westlake … [b]y a store in the
corner.” Samuels responded “[t]hem folks got me on some bulls**t,
Bruh.” Detective Skinner testified that at the time of this call,
investigators were showing people the surveillance video of the
Delaney shooting and that the term “dumping” refers to “shoot[ing]
a bunch of rounds, or at least one round.” When asked whether
Samuels indicated “that he was not dumping at any point,”
Detective Skinner answered “no.” The State also played a phone call
between Samuels, his girlfriend, and Samuels’s attorney, in which
the attorney read Samuels the charges from his indictment and
Samuels responded “Now I got an Aggravated Assault from June
20th? I never was arrested for … that.” When asked whether
Samuels stated on that call that he did not commit aggravated
assault against Delaney, Detective Skinner stated “no.”
On cross-examination, Detective Skinner testified that the
calls were “evidence that [Samuels] didn’t deny” the Delaney
shooting at the time, and that Samuels’s lack of denial was
“notable.” When asked whether Samuels’s lack of denial was
22 “evidence that … he’s involved in Mr. Kareem Smalls’ killing?”
Detective Skinner answered, “It’s been submitted as, yes.” When
asked again whether one of the phone calls was evidence that
Samuels committed the Smalls or Delaney shooting, Detective
Skinner stated “I can’t testify to what it’s evidence to. They asked
me what the phone calls were.”
(a) Samuels argues that the trial court erred in admitting
Detective Patrick Skinner’s commentary on Samuels’s jail phone
calls because it was cumulative of Samuels’s own statements on the
recordings, it was not relevant, and it was lay witness opinion
testimony that did not satisfy OCGA § 24-7-701(a).5 Because
Samuels did not object to Detective Skinner’s testimony concerning
his failure to deny the Delaney shooting during the jail calls, we
5 OCGA § 24-7-701 (a) provides that:
(a) If the witness is not testifying as an expert, the witness’s testimony in the form of opinions or inferences shall be limited to those opinions or inferences which are: (1) Rationally based on the perception of the witness; (2) Helpful to a clear understanding of the witness’s testimony or the determination of a fact in issue; and (3) Not based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge within the scope of Code Section 24-7-702. 23 review this claim for plain error only. McCalop v. State, 316 Ga. 363,
375 (2023). To establish plain error, Samuels must meet each prong
of a four-prong test:
First, there must be an error or defect – some sort of deviation from a legal rule – that has not been intentionally relinquished or abandoned, i.e., affirmatively waived, by the appellant. Second, the legal error must be clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute. Third, the error must have affected the appellant's substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means he must demonstrate that it affected the outcome of the trial court proceedings. Fourth and finally, if the above three prongs are satisfied, the appellate court has the discretion to remedy the error – discretion which ought to be exercised only if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.
Washington v. State, 312 Ga. 495, 498 (2021) (citation and
punctuation omitted). “As we have noted, affirmatively establishing
all four prongs is a difficult standard to satisfy.” Id. at 498–
99 (citation and punctuation omitted). “This Court does not have to
analyze all elements of the plain-error test where an appellant fails
to establish one of them.” Payne v. State, 314 Ga. 322, 325 (2022).
Assuming without deciding that the trial court obviously erred
24 in allowing Detective Skinner to testify about the content of
Samuels’s jail phone calls, Samuels has not shown plain error
because he cannot satisfy the third prong of the plain error
test. See Grier v. State, 313 Ga. 236, 245 (2022) (“Appellant has not
met his burden under the plain error standard to show a reasonable
probability that the outcome would have been different, as the
improperly admitted [testimony] was merely duplicative of other
properly admitted evidence.”).
As an initial matter, Samuels mischaracterizes Detective
Skinner’s testimony, arguing that Detective Skinner testified that
Samuels’s lack of denial was “evidence … he’s involved in Mr.
Kareem Smalls’s killing” and “that he committed the shooting … at
Ms. Jamie Delaney.” Our review of the trial transcript indicates that
when Detective Skinner was asked whether Samuels’s lack of denial
was “evidence that … he’s involved in Mr. Kareem Smalls’ killing?”
Skinner answered, “It’s been submitted as, yes.” When Detective
Skinner was asked whether Samuels’s lack of denial was evidence
“that he committed the shooting of … Delaney?” Skinner answered,
25 “I don’t think that was mentioned in this phone call … I can’t testify
to what it’s evidence to. They asked me what the phone calls were.”
Thus, Detective Skinner did not, as Samuels argues, “repeatedly
testify that because Samuels did not explicitly state, ‘I didn’t do this,’
he was guilty.” Moreover, this specific testimony about whether the
non-denials were evidence of Samuels’s guilt was elicited by
Samuels on cross-examination, not by the State on direct.
In any event, Samuels does not argue on appeal that the jail
phone calls themselves were inadmissible, only that the trial court
plainly erred in allowing Detective Skinner to testify regarding
Samuels’s lack of denial in the phone calls. Thus, the jury heard
Samuels’s non-denials on the phone calls for themselves. Detective
Skinner’s testimony recounting the fact that Samuels did not deny
shooting at Smalls or Delaney was therefore cumulative of
Samuels’s statements in the jail phone calls. See Durden v. State,
318 Ga. 729, 733–34 (2024) (holding that any error in the admission
of a detective’s lay opinion testimony about the appellant did not
affect the appellant’s substantial rights under the plain error
26 standard where the testimony was cumulative of other unobjected-
to testimony). Additionally, the trial court instructed the jury that
the “burden of proof never shifts to the Defendant to introduce
evidence or to prove innocence,” and jurors are presumed to follow a
trial court’s instructions. Cf. Wilson v. State, 315 Ga. 728, 735 (2023)
(jury was presumed to follow court’s instruction regarding
proximate cause when determining whether defendant was guilty of
felony murder). Samuels’s claim of plain error therefore fails. See
Durden, 318 Ga. at 733–34.
(b) Samuels also argues that his trial counsel provided
constitutionally ineffective assistance by not objecting to Detective
Skinner’s testimony. To prevail on this claim, Samuels must show
that he was prejudiced by his counsel’s deficient performance. See
Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 687 (1984). As set forth
above, however, Samuels has not shown that Detective Skinner’s
testimony affected the outcome of the trial. Accordingly, even if trial
counsel’s failure to object was deficient performance, Samuels has
not shown that he was prejudiced as a result. Thus, this claim fails
27 for the same reason his claim of plain error fails. See Griffin v. State,
311 Ga. 579, 584 (2021) (“[T]he test for prejudice in the ineffective
assistance analysis is equivalent to the test for harm in plain error
review.” (citation omitted)).
5. Samuels argues that he was cumulatively harmed by the
trial court’s errors. This claim fails.
“When this Court has identified or presumed more than one
error, although the effect of each on its own might have been
harmless,” we will “consider collectively, rather than individually,
the prejudicial effect, if any, of [the] trial court errors.” Nundra v.
State, 316 Ga. 1, 16 (2023) (citation and punctuation omitted). Even
considering the assumed error in permitting witness testimony
regarding Samuels’s drug activity and Detective Skinner’s
testimony regarding Samuels’s statements in jail phone calls, we
conclude that the cumulative effect of these errors does not warrant
a new trial. See Allen v. State, 310 Ga. 411, 417 (2020) (holding that
the cumulative effect of the trial court’s assumed errors did not
warrant a new trial given the “strong evidence” against defendant).
28 As noted above, the State did not emphasize Samuels’s alleged drug
activity in opening statements or closing arguments, and Detective
Skinner’s testimony was cumulative of other unobjected-to
testimony. In light of the other substantial evidence of Samuels’s
guilt heard by the jury in this case, we conclude that Samuels has
not shown that “the multiple errors so infected the jury’s
deliberation that they denied” him “a fundamentally fair
trial.” Greene v. State, 316 Ga. 584, 608 (2023) (quotation marks
omitted). See also Huff v. State, 315 Ga. 558, 568 (2023) (holding
that the appellant’s cumulative-error claim failed because the
appellant did not demonstrate that “the prejudicial effect of the
assumed trial court errors ... denied him a fundamentally fair trial,
given the strong evidence against him”). Accordingly, Samuels’s
cumulative-error contention fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.