A juror in a Fulton County attempted murder trial failed to disclose her decades-old felony conviction for cocaine possession, prompting a defendant’s convictions to be wiped out and a new trial granted.
In a unanimous ruling published Thursday, three judges of the Georgia Court of Appeals granted Darren Mills’ request for a new trial in the criminal case accusing him of attempting to kill a drug dealer during an armed robbery in Atlanta. Mills is serving a 30-year sentence in Calhoun State Prison on several convictions including attempted murder, armed robbery and participation in criminal street gang activity.
The judges said one of the jurors in Mills’ 2017 trial, referred to in the ruling as “C.L.L.,” said nothing when the trial judge asked prospective jurors if they had been convicted of a felony and not had their rights restored. Georgia law generally prohibits convicted felons from serving on juries.
In a posttrial hearing, the juror testified she had never been pardoned for her crime, according to the ruling. It shows the juror was initially sentenced under Georgia’s First Offender Act, which gives defendants the opportunity to have the record of their conviction erased. The juror’s conviction remained because she violated her probation by possessing cocaine, case records show.
“We are obviously happy about it,” Mills’ lawyer, Matthew Winchester, said Friday about the ruling. “We think that’s the right result.”
Winchester said he’ll seek Mills’ release from custody on bond as soon as the case is returned to the trial court. He said prosecutors from the Fulton County district attorney’s office have indicated they will seek review by the Georgia Supreme Court.
The ruling, if upheld, should mean that Mills’ two co-defendants, Dominique Carter and Quatez White, can also get a new trial, Winchester said. Carter and White were not involved in Mills’ appeal.
Representatives of the Fulton DA’s office did not immediately respond to questions about the ruling.
Attempts to contact the juror Friday were not immediately successful.
“Overall, I thought it was a clear-cut result that needed to be imposed,” Winchester said of the court’s decision. “The law is unequivocal.”
Case records show the juror pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and was sentenced under the First Offender Act in 1995, the year Mills was born. Her first offender status was revoked in 1997, court filings show.
The crime in which Mills, Carter and White were accused happened in 2015 outside a home on Cooper Street in Atlanta, according to court records.
Mills said in a recent filing the victim was a self-proclaimed drug dealer who was robbed and shot several times. Mills maintains that prosecutors mistakenly identified him as a suspect, Winchester said.
Court records show Mills, Carter and White were indicted in 2016 and pleaded not guilty to participation in criminal street gang activity, attempted murder, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, armed robbery, hijacking a motor vehicle, possession of a firearm and arson. They were each acquitted of the firearm charge and found guilty of the other charges.
Mills, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison, said on appeal his counsel learned of the juror’s conviction after the trial while investigating some “inflammatory statements” made by an alternate juror.
In June 2023, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Eric Dunaway denied Mills’ new trial request, saying the juror’s felony conviction did not impact the case in a way that was unfair to Mills. Dunaway said the juror’s testimony indicated she either did not hear or misunderstood the question about felony convictions during jury selection.
“(Mills) has not demonstrated that any juror misconduct occurred here or that he was harmed by any such conduct,” Dunaway wrote in an order.
Fulton prosecutors told the appellate court the juror may have actually shown favor toward Mills because she had heard of gang members who participated in positive activities, knew at least one person who socialized with or spent time with a gang and had at least one child or friend who took pictures with guns, money and drugs.
The juror’s great-nephew was affiliated with a gang and had been convicted and sentenced for it, prosecutors wrote in a recent filing.
“(The juror) believed sometimes you fall victim to the streets, that sometimes you don’t have a choice, and that everyone deserves a second chance,” prosecutors wrote. “Mills failed to show (the juror) deliberately concealed information about her status as a convicted felon and Mills failed to show actual bias on her part towards Mills.”
The appellate judges said they were not persuaded by prosecutors’ arguments in the case.
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