In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: October 25, 2022

S22A0630. CLARK v. THE STATE.

 PINSON, Justice.

Anthony James Clark was found guilty of felony murder and 

associated crimes in connection with the February 2019 death of 

Stasha Baggett.1 On appeal, Clark claims that, during his trial, a 

juror improperly communicated with a member of the victim’s 

 

1 The crimes occurred on February 13, 2019. In April 2019, Clark 

was indicted on two counts of felony murder and one count each of armed 

robbery, robbery, and possession of methamphetamine. Clark was tried 

before a jury in February 2020 and found guilty on all counts. On 

February 19, 2020, he was sentenced as a recidivist to serve life in prison

without the possibility of parole on one felony murder count plus a 

consecutive 15-year term for the drug possession count; the remaining 

counts merged or were vacated by operation of law. Clark filed a timely 

motion for new trial, which he amended through new counsel in May 

2021. Following hearings conducted in July and October 2021, the trial 

court denied the motion on December 6, 2021. Clark filed a timely notice 

of appeal. The appeal was docketed to the April 2022 term of this Court 

and was thereafter submitted for a decision on the briefs.
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family who was sitting in the audience. Clark contends that his trial 

counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to investigate

properly or otherwise address the incident and that the trial court 

also failed to investigate the incident properly, depriving him of his 

right to a fair trial. But the record shows that counsel made 

reasonable efforts to address the juror issue, and any error on the 

part of the trial court has not been preserved for our review. So we 

affirm.

1. Facts

(a) Late one evening in February 2019, Clark drove with a 

companion, Jami Johnson, to a home in Murray County to meet 

Baggett. Clark and Johnson regularly used methamphetamine 

together. According to Clark, the pair were planning to meet Baggett 

to buy some of the drug. According to Johnson, she did not know 

whom she and Clark were driving to meet but believed Clark 

intended to “rip off”—i.e., steal drugs or money from—whoever it 

was.
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According to Johnson, after they arrived at the home, Clark 

went inside while she remained in the car. Ten to fifteen minutes 

later, Clark emerged. He got in the driver’s seat of the car and told 

Johnson that he had told Baggett that Johnson “had the money for 

the dope.” Baggett followed Clark and, reaching the car, handed 

Clark a bag of meth through the driver’s side window. Clark handed 

the bag to Johnson and asked if she wanted it. Johnson, having no 

money, “just stare[d] at him.” In Johnson’s words, “Clark looks at 

me and says f**k it and puts the car in reverse.” Baggett “jumped 

onto the car trying to get her dope back.” Clark sprayed Baggett with 

pepper spray and backed the car into a wooded area, slamming 

Baggett—who was still holding onto the driver’s side mirror—into a

tree. 

Clark jumped out of the car and fled. A resident of the home, 

who had heard the commotion, came outside and called 911. Baggett 

died at the scene. 

Testimony and crime-scene photos established that Clark’s car 

had backed up with such force that it uprooted a small tree and 
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“sheared off” another in two places. The driver’s side mirror was 

dangling from the car by a wire, and the tree that the victim collided 

with had her hair embedded in it. The victim’s body had abrasions 

consistent with being dragged along the ground. The medical 

examiner testified that the cause of death was blunt-force trauma to 

the torso.

Clark and Johnson were both arrested. Johnson told police that 

she had hidden the meth they had taken from Baggett under a tarp 

near Clark’s car, and she later retrieved the bag for a GBI agent 

whom she accompanied back to the scene. The bag contained 6.499 

grams of meth. 

Clark testified at trial. He said that when Baggett followed him 

to the car, she became “irate” after she saw that he was with 

Johnson and so, “to keep from a physical altercation happening,” he 

“put the car in reverse and pulled pepper spray.” He said that he 

“panicked” and “jumped out and ran.”

(b) At trial, Clark told his trial counsel that, during Johnson’s 

testimony, he had noticed a juror “mouthing” something to one or 
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more of the victim’s family members, who were seated in the gallery 

of the courtroom. Clark reported this to counsel as soon as Johnson’s 

testimony concluded, just before a recess, and counsel notified the 

court that he “may have something to discuss with the Court” after 

the break. After a 23-minute break, at a bench conference before the 

jury reentered the courtroom, counsel told the trial judge about 

Clark’s allegation. He said he had investigated during the recess and

believed it was “just a glance by a jury member out into the 

audience.” Still, counsel asked the trial court to give the jury a 

cautionary instruction. The court agreed and, when the jury 

reentered the courtroom, the judge reminded the jurors to avoid 

communications and contact with anyone outside the jury, 

instructing them to “be abundantly cautious about where you glance 

or whether you hold a glance or who you talk to . . . in the hall.”

In his motion for new trial, Clark raised the alleged juror 

incident as the basis for claims of ineffective assistance of counsel

and violation of his right to a fair trial. At the hearing, Clark 

testified that he had seen a female juror in the front row of the jury 
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box “mouthing words to the victim’s family” and that one of these 

family members “was shaking her head” in response. He also 

testified that his mother had seen the incident.

For his part, trial counsel testified that, during the recess 

following Clark’s reporting of the incident, he had spoken with the 

bailiffs and other court personnel, as well as some of Clark’s family 

members. According to counsel, “no one indicated that they had seen 

anything other than just routine glancing and so forth, as jurors do 

during the course of a trial.” While admitting that “in hindsight,” he

“probably should have” asked the court to question the juror, counsel 

testified that at the time, based on his significant trial experience, 

his own observations, and the investigation he undertook, he “was 

satisfied” that he had taken the appropriate steps. He also testified 

that, during his representation of Clark, Clark had a tendency to 

“exaggerate” and make statements that were “outlandish.”

In denying Clark’s motion for new trial, the trial court found 

that Clark’s testimony was “not credible,” that there was “no 

evidence of juror misconduct,” and that trial counsel’s actions “were 
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appropriate and reasonable.” 

2. Analysis

(a) Clark contends that his trial counsel rendered 

constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to adequately 

investigate his report of juror misconduct. To succeed on a claim of 

ineffective assistance, a defendant must establish both that his 

counsel’s performance was deficient and that he was prejudiced as a 

result of that deficient performance. See Washington v. State, 313

Ga. 771, 773 (3) (873 SE2d 132) (2022) (citing Strickland v. 

Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (III) (104 SCt 2052, 80 LEd2d 674) 

(1984)). 

To prove deficient performance, a defendant must establish 

that counsel “performed his duties in an objectively unreasonable 

way, considering all the circumstances and in the light of prevailing 

professional norms.” Id. (citation omitted). To overcome the “strong 

presumption” that counsel performed reasonably, the defendant 

must show that “no reasonable lawyer would have done what his 

lawyer did, or would have failed to do what his lawyer did not.” Id. 
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(citation omitted). To prove prejudice, a defendant must establish 

that there is a “reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s 

deficiency, the result of the trial would have been different.” Id. A 

reasonable probability is a probability “sufficient to undermine 

confidence in the outcome” of the trial. Neal v. State, 313 Ga. 746, 

751 (3) (873 SE2d 209) (2022) (citation omitted). An ineffectiveassistance claim fails if the defendant fails to establish either 

deficient performance or prejudice. See Washington, 313 Ga. at 773 

(3).

In reviewing a trial court’s determination on an ineffectiveassistance claim, we accept the trial court’s factual findings and 

credibility determinations unless they are clearly erroneous, but we 

independently apply the relevant legal principles to the facts. See

Sullivan v. State, 301 Ga. 37, 40 (2) (799 SE2d 163) (2017). 

Here, Clark contends that trial counsel should have insisted 

that the trial court question the juror under oath about whether she 

had communicated with the victim’s family member or had 

predetermined Clark’s guilt, and that his failure to do so amounts to 
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deficient performance. 

But we cannot agree that trial counsel’s actions in addressing 

Clark’s allegation about the juror were “so patently unreasonable 

that no competent attorney would have followed such a course.”

Washington, 313 Ga. at 773 (3) (citation omitted). To the contrary, 

the record shows that counsel made reasonable efforts to address the 

juror issue. The trial transcript makes clear that trial counsel 

investigated Clark’s claim immediately and brought the issue to the 

attention of the prosecutor and the court. At the motion-for-newtrial hearing, trial counsel explained that he investigated by asking

courtroom officers and Clark’s family about the issue, and none of 

them reported anything unusual. Trial counsel also testified that 

perhaps he should have asked the trial court to question the juror, 

but “hindsight has no place in an assessment of the performance of 

trial counsel.” Keener v. State, 301 Ga. 848, 850 (2) (804 SE2d 383) 

(2017) (cleaned up). Trial counsel’s decision to timely and diligently

investigate as he did falls well within the bounds of reasonable and 

competent performance. Further, the trial court was authorized to 
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credit trial counsel’s testimony about his investigation and to 

discredit Clark’s testimony about the incident, see Sullivan, 301 Ga. 

at 40 (2), and did not clearly err in doing so. Clark failed to establish 

that counsel’s performance was deficient, so his claim of ineffective 

assistance fails. See Bozzie v. State, 302 Ga. 704, 711 (4) (c) (808 

SE2d 671) (2017) (trial counsel did not render deficient performance 

by failing to pursue an incident of juror misconduct that he 

reasonably believed was harmless based on an investigator’s 

account of the incident).

(b) Clark also contends that the trial court should have sua 

sponte conducted its own investigation into the juror’s alleged 

communication with the victim’s family. This alleged error is not 

preserved for our review because Clark did not raise any objection 

below to the trial court’s handling of the juror issue. See Grier v. 

State, 305 Ga. 882, 887 (3) (828 SE2d 304) (2019) (failure to object 

at trial to alleged error results in waiver of appellate review). And 

this is not the kind of alleged error for which plain-error review is 

available. See Keller v. State, 308 Ga. 492, 497 (2) (a) (842 SE2d 22) 
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(2020) (listing limited categories of alleged errors for which plainerror review is available). So this claim is not subject to our review.

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.