Francais v. Somps

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that parole ineligibility is a “drastic penalty”
• rejecting argument that OCGA § 17-10-7 (a) requires a trial court to sentence a convicted felon to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole upon a subsequent murder conviction, and holding that OCGA § 17-10-7 (a
• in construing a statute, “we must read the statutory text in its most natural and reasonable way, as an ordinary speaker of the English language would”
• “The decision not to request a jury charge on a lesser included offense in order to pursue an ‘all-or-nothing’ defense is a matter of trial strategy.” (citation and punctuation omitted)
• “The appellant has the burden of showing a clear or obvious error and further making an affirmative showing that the error probably did affect the outcome below.”
• it is not patently unreasonable for trial counsel to make a strategic decision to base 13 the defense on the evidence at trial and on the defendant’s consistent account, rather than risk losing credibility with jury

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).