Angelique T. Valentine, 26, had been sentenced to life in prison plus five years on May 19, 2004, after a jury in Troup Superior Court convicted her of murder and possession of a knife during the commission of a crime. But Simpson, who presided at the trial, ruled that Valentine didn’t get a fair shake due to ineffective assistance of counsel.
“Obviously we disagree and we’re going to appeal” to the Georgia Supreme Court, said assistant district attorney Ray Mayer, who prosecuted the case. The judge said defense attorney Frank Thornton of LaGrange, who died six months after the trial, failed to interview several key witnesses and properly investigate the case.
“The defense attorney’s representation here does undermine the confidence in the outcome of the trial,” Simpson wrote in the order filed Tuesday. “The defense attorney could not create a proper theory for defense of the case given the lack of investigation that occurred.”
For the trial judge to grant a motion for a new trial seldom happens. “It’s very rare. I can’t think of one,” said Alfred Zachry, who has been a criminal defense attorney in LaGrange for 40 years.
Such motions are routinely denied by the trial judge and punted to the appellate courts.
“Especially in a murder case, it’s pretty shocking,” said assistant public defender Suellen Fleming, who handled Valentine’s appeal. “… I salute Judge John Simpson for his astute judicial courage.”
Fleming said none of the attorneys she had spoken with can recall another case where a trial judge granted a motion for new trial. One lawyer told her a State Court judge in Clayton County once granted such a motion in a misdemeanor case “and that was just a rumor.”
“They said I pulled a rabbit out of the hat, now what do I do with it? Nobody knows,” she said.
She said “clearly erroneous” will be the standard by which the Supreme Court must decide the appeal of Simpson’s ruling “and they’re going to say no it’s not because he backed up his decision with facts that support his decision.”
Nolan Cox, 21, of LaGrange died after Valentine stabbed him once in the chest during an altercation at Lucy Morgan Homes on Oct. 12, 2003.
According to testimony, Cox had intentionally hit Valentine with a basketball and she got a knife from her apartment. Cox had Valentine in a headlock when she stabbed him, according to a witness.
Toxicology tests showed Cox had a blood-alcohol level of 0.125, well above the legal threshold for intoxication, but Thornton did not call the toxicologist as a witness.
“All he could get in was that, oh, he’d been drinking,” Fleming said. “That would explain his aggressiveness. Why keep coming at someone wielding a knife? I think if the jury had heard that” the verdict might have been different.
She said Thornton did not request that the jury have the option of considering voluntary manslaughter.
Only Valentine was called as a defense witness, even though Thornton’s investigator, Myron Gilbert, had told him there were witnesses who could support a self-defense theory.
Simpson said Thornton didn’t subpoena any witnesses so he would be entitled to have the final argument to the jury.
“He effectively cross-examined witnesses, but he didn’t put up a defense. That’s the sad thing,” Fleming said. “The other sad thing is my client has been sitting in jail for seven years waiting for someone to do an appeal.”
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