ATLANTA — Casey Collins killed his grandfather six years ago. He told doctors he snapped, squeezing a belt around the 78-year-old’s neck because, in that moment, he vividly and manically recalled the pain of childhood abuse his grandfather inflicted on him.
The alleged abuse, according to his lawyer, ranged from both direct sexual abuse by his grandfather, Edward Ronald Smith, to ritualized rapes by others his grandfather allowed. Collins could never identify those people, his lawyer said Wednesday before the Georgia Supreme Court, because they wore animal masks.
None of this was ever heard at Collins’ murder trial.
Whether it should have been, and whether Collins’ court-appointed trial lawyer should have introduced it as mitigating evidence in a case that saw Collins convicted and given two life-without-parole sentences, was a question before the state Supreme Court.
Collins’ current lawyer, M. Joel Bergstrom, argued the decision against pursuing this argument was so egregious that it should entitle Collins to a whole new trial.
Justices, however, appeared skeptical during extensive questioning.
The sprawling case begins with the 2013 murder, the basic facts of which were not in question.
According to a summary provided by the Georgia Supreme Court public information officer, on May 2 of that year, Collins and his girlfriend Sarah Cook, who together lived with her grandmother in Cobb County, woke up in severe withdrawal from the prescription pain pills they were hooked on.
The two went to their regular source for the pills: Collins’ grandfather.
Smith ran a prescription pill dealing scheme according to the court’s summary of the case. Documents suggest he would take a number of people to doctors various times a month to procure prescriptions for medications like Xanax and Oxycodone, effectively using them as mules. The people hooked on the pills would keep their half, and the grandfather would sell the other half.
Collins, the man’s grandson, was one of those mules.
The morning of May 2, 2013, though, Smith wouldn’t supply the pills, demanding $700 he was owed by Cook.
They went to an ATM to try to get money out of Cook’s grandmother’s account. But they couldn’t and went back home. They pleaded for some pills while they worked to pay him back, but Smith still refused them.
From there, the court document states that the angry pair “went inside and plotted how to kill and rob Smith” who was still parked outside.
Cook went into the car and begged for pills one last time. Denied, she stabbed Smith four times.
As Smith fought her off, Collins “removed his belt, wrapped it around Smith’s neck, and strangled his grandfather for several minutes until he was dead.”
The couple took several hundred pills and around $1,000 from the dead grandfather. According to the case summary, they injected the drugs all day as they went on a shopping spree.
Eventually, they dumped the body near Six Flags.
Three days later, Collins’ mom and aunt became concerned about their father and a police investigation led to the grandson and his girlfriend. The two were arrested and charged in the murder.
In a trial, Collins was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault and concealing the death of another. He was sentenced to consecutive life terms.
That trial was at the heart of Wednesday’s arguments before the Supreme Court. Collins was originally denied a new trial by the trial court and appealed to Georgia’s highest court.
Bergstrom argued that a doctor was willing to testify that he would diagnose Collins with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a result of his childhood abuse. That testimony could have helped Collins get a voluntary manslaughter conviction, which comes with a sentence of one to 20 years instead of two life sentences.
The decision by Michael Ivan, Collins’ defense attorney at trial, to not introduce this line of argument rendered the defense ineffective, Bergstrom claimed.
He made note of Collins saying things like he “blacked out” and “saw red” as he choked his grandfather to death - a flashback-like experience inducing him into such rage that he killed him.
“I think it’s manslaughter,” he said.
Justices, Presiding Justice David E. Nahmias in particular, probed Bergstrom’s argument skeptically.
Justice Nahmias repeatedly pointed out that, under Georgia law, voluntary manslaughter cases require a “reasonable person” defense – that is, would the circumstances cause a reasonable person to lash out. In such a defense, he said, the specific mental situation of the defendant isn’t relevant.
“Even assuming all of this evidence is exactly as you say, and trial counsel had said, ‘I want to offer this evidence,’ wouldn’t the trial court have said no?” Justice Nahmias asked.
Justices also seemed skeptical of the specific testimony Dr. Kevin Richards would have given. During cross-examination at a motion for new trial hearing, the doctor learned new information about Collins’ mental state and “equivocated and testified that his ability to testify in Collins’s favor was diminished,” as the court’s case summary framed the State’s argument.
Bergstrom, nonetheless, concluded, “My argument is it’s unreasonable not to use this expert when it could have potentially gotten a manslaughter charge.”
The state, represented by John Edwards, quoted a phrase used by the trial lawyer that it would have been “strategically stupid” to use as a witness a doctor who was now possibly thinking his key diagnosis wouldn’t be legitimate.
The justices did not ask Edwards any questions.
A ruling won’t be issued in the case until probably July.
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