Opinion
No. S11A1609.
2012-03-19
BARKER v. BARROW.
Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, Matthew Mahoney Lubozynski, J. Henry Walker, IV, John Phillip Jett, for appellant. Benjamin Henry Pierman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, Matthew Mahoney Lubozynski, J. Henry Walker, IV, John Phillip Jett, for appellant. Benjamin Henry Pierman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., for appellee.
HINES, Justice.
This Court granted criminal defendant Darion C. Barker a certificate of probable cause to appeal an order of the Superior Court of Wilcox County denying his application for a writ of habeas corpus in order to consider whether the habeas court erred in concluding that trial counsel (and thus appellate counsel) was not ineffective for failing to further investigate the actual validity of Barker's prior convictions in the face of the State's notice of intent to rely on those convictions for sentencing enhancement purposes. Finding that it was not error to reject the claims of the ineffectiveness of counsel on the basis urged, we affirm the denial of habeas corpus relief.
Barker was convicted in 1996 of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and because of his five prior convictions following guilty pleas, he was sentenced as a recidivist to life in prison without the possibility of parole pursuant to OCGA §§ 16–13–30(d) and 17–10–7(c). The Court of Appeals affirmed the 1996 conviction. See Barker v. State, 226 Ga.App. 747, 487 S.E.2d 494 (1997). In 2008, Barker filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging the ineffective assistance of both trial and appellate counsel. He claimed that his guilty pleas in the 1989, 1993, and 1994 cases upon which his recidivist sentence was based were constitutionally infirm because he was not properly advised of his Boykin
All the Justices concur.
1. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969).