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Turpin v. Helmeci6/14/1999
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
On February 27, 1997, Helmeci was convicted of second degree vehicular homicide, driving with a controlled substance in his urine, reckless driving, driving an unsafe and improperly equipped vehicle, and possession of amphetamine and methamphetamine. See Helmeci v. State, 230 Ga. App. 866 (498 SE2d 326) (1998). He was sentenced to a twelve-year term for the drug possession charge, the first seven years to be served in confinement, with concurrent twelve month sentences on the other charges. After his appeal, Helmeci filed a petition for habeas corpus, asserting that his trial counsel had been ineffective in failing to raise a meritorious objection to the State's use of the urine test result to prove him guilty of drug possession. The habeas court granted the petition, and the State appeals.
The only evidence of Helmeci's possession of amphetamine and methamphetamine was the test result of his urine sample given in response to the implied consent warning. See OCGA §§ 40-5-55; 40-5-67.1; and 40-5-392. The habeas court relied on Beasley v. State, 204 Ga. App. 214 (419 SE2d 92) (1992) and State v. Gerace, 210 Ga. App. 874 (437 SE2d 862) (1993), for the proposition that the test results of a sample taken from a suspect may not be used for purposes for which the suspect was not advised and to which he did not consent. The habeas court held that these two cases supported a meritorious defense under the Fourth Amendment that Helmeci's consent allowed the State to use the sample only to prosecute the traffic offense of driving with a controlled substance in his urine, not for a possession charge, and that counsel was ineffective in not raising that issue.
The State argues that State v. Jewell, 228 Ga. App. 825 (492 SE2d 706) (1997), which was decided seven months after Helmeci's trial, was the first case to definitively hold that it is a Fourth Amendment violation to use the implied consent statute to obtain blood and urine samples to gather evidence for a drug possession violation, and it was therefore error for the habeas court to rule that counsel should have raised an argument that was not yet clearly meritorious. However, Jewell is simply an outgrowth of Beasley and Gerace. In Beasley, the suspect's "consent was premised on the incomplete and thus deceptively misleading information he received from [the officer] that the test results would be used only `for determining bond.' Had appellant been cautioned that the results of the search and seizure of his urine would be used to supply evidence against him in an independent criminal prosecution, no consent might have been given." Beasley, at 216. In Gerace, a DUI suspect's blood sample was used to produce DNA evidence to convict Gerace of rape and aggravated sodomy. Gerace cited Beasley for the proposition that " his court held that consent for one purpose does not mean consent for ANY purpose..." Gerace, at 875 (Emphasis in original.) These decisions clearly stated that evidence obtained by consent cannot be used for purposes beyond the scope of that consent. That principle was clear to the trial court in Jewell, which granted the motion to suppress, and was clear to the Court of Appeals in rendering Jewell. In fact, prior to Jewell, Helmeci wrote a letter to his trial counsel complaining about counsel's failure to make the argument, and specifically referred to the Beasley decision.
In order to prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Helmeci must show both that counsel's performance was deficient and that the deficient performance was prejudicial to his defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (104 SC 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984). There is a "strong presumption" that c
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