Opinion
A22A0260
12-07-2021
RANDY PRICE v. THE STATE.
The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:
In 2008, Randy Price was convicted of two drug offenses. He was sentenced to a total of 50 years. We affirmed his convictions on appeal. See Price v. State, 303 Ga.App. 859 (694 S.E.2d 712) (2010). In 2018, Price filed a motion to vacate, set aside or correct his sentence, arguing that his recidivist sentence is void in light of a 2015 amendment to OCGA § 17-10-7 (c). The trial court denied the motion, and Price appealed. In dismissing that appeal, we stated that Price's sentence falls within the range of allowable sentences for his crimes and found that his motion failed to raise a colorable claim that the sentence is void. Price v. State, Case No. A20A0297 (Oct. 11, 2019). Then, in 2020, Price filed another motion to set aside or correct his sentence, arguing that he was wrongly sentenced as a recidivist given the 2015 amendment to OCGA § 17-10-7 (c). The trial court denied the motion, and Price filed this appeal. However, this appeal is subject to dismissal, as it raises issues that have already been resolved unfavorably to Price in his prior appeal.
See also Price v. State, 300 Ga.App. 795 (686 S.E.2d 406) (2009) (affirming trial court's denial of Price's motion to vacate or correct a void sentence, in which he claimed the State failed to give him proper notice of its intent to seek recidivist punishment).
"It is well established that any issue that was raised and resolved in an earlier appeal is the law of the case and is binding on this Court[.]" Ross v. State, 310 Ga.App. 326, 327 (713 S.E.2d 438) (2011) (punctuation and footnote omitted). We have already considered the validity of Price's recidivist sentence in a prior appeal. Price "is not entitled to multiple bites at the apple." Ross, 310 Ga.App. at 328; see also Paradise v. State, 321 Ga.App. 371, 373 (740 S.E.2d 238) (2013) ("Although a void sentence may be challenged at any time, this important legal principle is, nevertheless, subject to the equally well established principles of res judicata and the law-of-the-case rule once the issue has been raised and ruled upon.") (punctuation omitted); Echols v. State, 243 Ga.App. 775, 776 (534 S.E.2d 464) (2000) (the same issue cannot be relitigated ad infinitum; our determination in an earlier appeal is res judicata). Accordingly, this appeal is hereby DISMISSED.