Harris v. State

How courts have described this case

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

• holding that the trial court abused its discretion under Rule 403 by admitting evidence of the appellant’s sexual activities on the day before the victim’s death, which had “trivial probative value” and was “very prejudicial”
• explaining that “‘compelling properly admitted evidence of guilt’” may offset a high risk of prejudice from improperly admitted evidence
• noting that evidence of an alleged motive that lacks a specific, logical link to the alleged crimes often supports only improper propensity arguments
• noting that “‘[i]t does not follow because an accused person may have a bad character that he is guilty of the particular offense for which he is being tried’”
• reversing the appellant’s convictions due to the improper admission of evidence under Rule 403, which was not harmless, because the evidence was highly prejudicial and the proof of the appellant’s guilt “was not ‘overwhelming,’ ‘compelling,’ or even strong”
• assuming without deciding that evidence of the appellant’s sexual messages and conduct was relevant under Rule 401 to prove his motive to murder the victim before ultimately concluding that much of the evidence was not admissible under Rule 403

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Cited by

40 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

• Pritchett v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2022-10-04· cited 29×
• Roberts v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2022-11-02· cited 16×
• Lowe v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2022-10-04· cited 16×
• White v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2024-06-27· cited 16×
• Kimbro v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2023-10-11· cited 13×
• Baker v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2024-03-05· cited 13×
• State v. HARRIS (Two Cases)
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2023-05-16· cited 10×
• Williams v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2022-09-20· cited 7×
• McCullum v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2024-03-05· cited 7×
• Holloway v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2025-01-28· cited 7×
• Reese v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2022-10-25· cited 6×
• Harris v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2025-03-04· cited 6×
• State v. Williams
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2023-05-02· cited 4×
• Gallegos-Munoz v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2024-09-17· cited 4×
• State v. Flowers
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2025-02-18· cited 2×
• Miller v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2024-10-31· cited 1×
• State v. Hasaan Shalgheen
  Court of Appeals of Georgia· 2023-12-04
• Melissa Baker v. Tracey Cuthbertson, as the of the Estate of Robert Moffitt
  Court of Appeals of Georgia· 2024-09-11
• David Lee Frady v. State
  Court of Appeals of Georgia· 2024-10-23
• Nicholas Ashley v. State
  Court of Appeals of Georgia· 2025-01-24

Cites

62 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

• Jackson v. Virginia
  Supreme Court· 1979-10-01· cited 79,490×
• Old Chief v. United States
  Supreme Court· 1997-01-07· cited 2,913×
• Olds v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2016-05-23· cited 258×
• State v. Lane
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2020-02-10· cited 247×
• Dingler v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 1975-01-08· cited 173×
• In Re Air Crash Disaster.
  Sixth Circuit· 1996-06-06· cited 170×
• United States v. Hands
  Eleventh Circuit· 1999-08-18· cited 149×
• Kirby v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2018-09-24· cited 129×
• Anglin v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2017-10-16· cited 118×
• Hood v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2016-05-23· cited 115×
• State v. Almanza
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2018-10-09· cited 98×
• Williams v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2017-10-30· cited 97×
• Smart v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2016-07-05· cited 86×
• Jackson v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2019-06-03· cited 86×
• Keller v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2020-04-20· cited 59×
• United States v. Vanston Venner Williams
  Eleventh Circuit· 2017-08-01· cited 58×
• Thompson v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2017-11-02· cited 57×
• Strong v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2020-06-29· cited 51×
• Brown v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 1994-11-28· cited 48×
• Mims v. State
  Supreme Court of Georgia· 2019-01-22· cited 46×