Winston E. Watkins v. State

• Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
• Decided: February 12, 2018
• Docket: A18A1083
• Status: Published

Opinion

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________ February 12, 2018

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A18A1083. WINSTON E. WATKINS v. THE STATE

Winston E. Watkins was convicted of aggravated child molestation and child molestation in 2014. He appealed, and this Court affirmed his convictions, but vacated the sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. See Watkins v. State, 336 Ga. App. 145 (784 SE2d 11) (2016). Watkins was resentenced. Thereafter, Watkins filed a motion to set aside the judgment of conviction, arguing that the indictment was fatally flawed due to errors in the proceedings of the grand jury that returned it. The trial court denied and dismissed Watkins’s motion, and he filed this direct appeal. We lack jurisdiction. As the Georgia Supreme Court has made clear, a motion seeking to set aside or vacate an allegedly void criminal conviction is not one of the established procedures for challenging the validity of a judgment in a criminal case, and an appeal from the trial court’s ruling on such a motion must be dismissed. See Roberts v. State, 286 Ga. 532 (690 SE2d 150) (2010); see also Jones v. State, 290 Ga. App. 490, 494 (2) (659 SE2d 875) (2008) (challenge to validity of indictment is challenge to conviction). Accordingly, this appeal is hereby DISMISSED. Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________ 02/12/2018 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.