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when the hearsay testimony is merely cumulative and when it is highly probable that its admission did not contribute to the guilty verdict.’ Zachary v. State, 276 Ga.App. 688, 691(2), 624 S.E.2d 265 (2005). See also Hall v. State, 292 Ga. 701, 703(2)(b), 743 S.E.2d 6 (2013).” Accord, New case!Everhart v. State , A16A0652, ___ Ga.App. ___, ___ S.E.2d ___, 2016 WL 3064872 (May 25, 2016). 2. No ineffective assistance shown from counsel’s alleged “inattention” during trial. “Marshall contends that trial counsel was inattentive during trial, even at one point putting his head on the table and falling asleep. In its order denying the motion for new trial, the court noted counsel denied he had slept, although did agree that he had probably put his head down on the table during the time that the recording of Marshall's interview with investigators was played for the jury.[fn] The court found that counsel had reviewed the recording on several occasions, knew its content, and knew that there was nothing in the recording to which counsel could raise further objection. These findings were amply supported by the record, and the court was correct to reject any question of presumptive prejudice under United States v. Cronic, 466 U.S. 648, 104 S.Ct. 2039, 80 L.Ed.2d 657 (1984), and thus to evaluate Marshall's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under the Strickland standard. See Charleston v. State, 292 Ga. 678, 682–683(4)(a), 743 S.E.2d 1 (2013). And, under that standard, the court did not err in finding that Marshall failed to show ineffective assistance arising from this incident. As the court noted, even though this display of inattentiveness was ‘outside professional norms,’ Marshall failed to show that any evidence was introduced thereby which could have been excluded, and thus failed to show prejudice. See Lynch v. State, 291 Ga. 555, 557–558(2)(c), 731 S.E.2d 672 (2012).” Ponder v. State, 332 Ga.App. 576, 774 S.E.2d 152 (June 25, 2015). Rape and related convictions affirmed; no ineffective assistance in failing to object to Golden Rule violation in prosecutor’s closing argument. “Ponder asserts his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object when the State in closing referred to facts not in evidence (standing in the victim's closet and picking a dress for her to wear and the victim having to take a break to go hug her mom in the hall) and violated the Golden Rule by asking the jurors to place themselves in the victim's position (asking the jurors to imagine how hard it would be to tell strangers that your father raped you). Counsel testified that he made a deliberate strategic choice not to object at this point because he had emphasized in closing that the victim cried during her direct examination but had a different, ‘fairly confrontational’ demeanor during cross-examination. He ‘made a big deal’ in his closing about how genuine the victim's emotions were, so he thought that if the State wanted to argue that the victim ‘was emotionally upset the whole time, when clearly she was not, then that was fine.’ Further, he argued in closing that the prosecutor had told the victim how to wear her hair and had picked out a dress for her. The decision not to object was therefore clearly strategic.” Aikens v. State, 297 Ga. 229, 773 S.E.2d 229 (June 1, 2015). Malice murder and related convictions affirmed; counsel’s performance was “objectively unreasonable” in one respect, but harmless. Counsel failed to object to State’s exhibit offered to show defendant’s prior conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm, to prove the charge here of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; but the exhibit also showed other charges of aggravated assault and possession of a sawed-off shotgun. No harm, however, as the other charges weren’t otherwise brought up at trial, and if the jury saw them on the exhibit, they would also see that they were dismissed. Mann v. State, 297 Ga. 107, 772 S.E.2d 665 (May 11, 2015). Felony murder and related convictions affirmed; no ineffective assistance in failing to object to testimony, and prosecutor’s closing argument, “referencing the fact that [victim] Bennett had a son. Mann argues that these references inflamed the jury by implicitly and explicitly conveying that a child had been left fatherless by the murder. Trial counsel testified that she strategically chose not to object to references to Bennett's fatherhood for two reasons: she did not want to be perceived as attacking the victim and she did not want to highlight the testimony. In general, decisions regarding trial tactics and strategy may form the basis for an ineffectiveness claim only if they were so patently unreasonable that no competent attorney would have followed such a course. Romer v. State, 293 Ga. 339(3), 745 S.E.2d 637 (2013).” Favors v. State, 296 Ga. 842, 770 S.E.2d 855 (March 27, 2015). Murder and related convictions affirmed; no ineffective assistance in failing to object to a “handful of comments” in prosecutor’s closing argument: one inviting jurors to “‘imagine what would be going through their minds, Mr. Barber's mind, the defendants' minds’ as they faced one another after the co-defendants broke through Barber's door”; another “to the effect that a juror's job is ‘to seek the truth. It's not to look for doubt.’” “Pretermitting whether either of these statements would have given rise to a valid objection at trial, we find, given the isolated nature of each of these remarks and the wide latitude afforded counsel in closing argument, that trial counsel did not perform in an objectively unreasonable manner in failing to object thereto, nor did Favors' defense suffer prejudice therefrom.”

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