Walton v. State

Summary

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Walton’s convictions because his directed-verdict and sufficiency arguments were unpreserved or abandoned, and his preserved appellate challenges failed under plain-error review. The court held that Walton did not show that the admission of gang-literature evidence, use of an interview transcript, an isolated reference to his incarceration, or testimony about a co-defendant’s statements affected the trial’s outcome. The court also rejected or declined to consider Walton’s ineffective-assistance claims because one lacked deficient performance and the others were abandoned for inadequate argument.