Supreme Court orders retrials over failure to establish venues

ATLANTA - The state Supreme Court ordered retrials in two murder cases Monday while sharply criticizing prosecutors for not establishing the locations of the crimes, a violation of the Georgia Constitution. <br> <br> The law requires that the venues in criminal cases must be made clear to a judge or jury. <br> <br> ``Venue is a jury question that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and for at least the last hundred years, this Court has reversed criminal convictions when the State failed to prove venue,&#39;&#39; wrote Chief Justice Norman Fletcher. <br> <br> The justices agreed that Clarence Lynn should be retried in the shooting death of Eric Clay, 23, and that Thomas Graham be retried in the death of Alfred Smith. <br> <br> In both cases, justices admonished prosecutors for not making sure the venue was clear. <br> <br> ``Recently, this Court has seen several cases in which venue was an issue because the State failed to put on direct evidence of venue, even though nothing about the cases suggested that direct evidence was not available or that the location of the crime was disputed,&#39;&#39; Fletcher wrote. <br> <br> Lynn was convicted of murder on Nov. 26, 1998. He was convicted in Fulton County of killing Clay on Aug. 24, 1995 with a .45-caliber handgun. <br> <br> Graham was convicted of Smith&#39;s murder on July 24, 2000. <br> <br> At Graham&#39;s trial, witnesses stated that the crime occurred in the city of Riverdale, which is in Clayton County, but it was not mentioned in front of the jury. <br> <br> ``The trial court took judicial notice that Riverdale is in Clayton County but the court failed to mentioned to the jury that the crimes occurred in Clayton County or that Riverdale is in Clayton County,&#39;&#39; wrote Justice Leah Ward Sears. <br> <br> Lynn and Graham will remain in prison until a new trial can be set, which could take several months, said Barbara Latimer Jennings, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Supreme Court. <br> <br> Double jeopardy does not bar the state from retrying Graham and Lynn because the matter is an ``evidentiary insufficiency concerning the procedural propriety of laying venue within a particular forum,&#39;&#39; wrote Fletcher.