Jordan C. Usman v. State

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________ December 18, 2018

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order: A19A0876. JORDAN C. USMAN v. THE STATE.

In 2012, Jordan C. Usman entered non-negotiated guilty pleas to two counts of child molestation. The trial court sentenced Usman to a total sentence of 34 years in prison, to be followed by 6 years on probation. We affirmed Usman’s convictions. Usman v. State, 330 Ga. App. 521 (768 SE2d 110) (2015). On June 25, 2018, Usman filed a motion to vacate a void / illegal sentence, in which he argued that: (i) the trial court violated his right to be free from double jeopardy by entering convictions on both child-molestation charges, which, he contends, should have merged as a matter of fact and law; and (ii) his defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance by allowing him “to be sentenced to the time that the law doesn’t allow” under the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution; Article I, Section I, Paragraph XVII of the Georgia Constitution; and OCGA § 16-1-7 (a) (1). After the trial court denied Usman’s motion on August 7, he filed, in the Supreme Court, a document entitled “Motion in Arrest of Judgment and/or Concurrent Consecutive Unconstitutional Excessive Sentence,” which the Supreme Court docketed as an application for discretionary review and transferred to this Court. We subsequently denied the application. See Case No. A19D0116 (denied Oct. 26, 2018). Usman also filed a separate notice of appeal to this Court on August 24, 2018, seeking to appeal the trial court’s August 7 order.1

1 On August 15, 2018, Usman filed an amended motion to vacate a void / illegal sentence reiterating several of the same arguments raised in June 2018 motion. Additionally, Usman argued that his guilty plea was not knowing and voluntary because the trial court failed to inform him that he would be subject to consecutive

Because we rejected Usman’s arguments related to the August 7 order in his prior application in Case No. A19D0116, his current appeal is barred by the law of the case. See Ross v. State, 310 Ga. App. 326, 327 (713 SE2d 438) (2011) (“[A]ny issue that was raised and resolved in an earlier appeal is the law of the case and is binding on this Court . . . .”) (citation omitted); accord Jackson v. State, 273 Ga. 320, 320 (540 SE2d 612) (2001); Hook v. Bergen, 286 Ga. App. 258, 261 (1) (649 SE2d 313) (2007) (“[T]he denial of an application for discretionary appeal is an adjudication on the merits of the underlying order and acts as res judicata in subsequent proceedings.”). Accordingly, this appeal is hereby DISMISSED.

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________ 12/18/2018 I certify that the above is a true extract from the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia. Witness my signature and the seal of said court hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk.

sentences. The trial court denied this amended motion on September 10, 2018. Based on the record, it does not appear that Usman filed a notice of appeal from this order.