Miller v. State

── Miller v. State ── Court: Supreme Court of Georgia Date: May 19, 2026 Category: General NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion. In the Supreme Court of Georgia No. S26A0530 Jerrome Tyvone Miller v. The State On Appeal from the Superior Court of Richmond County No. 2022RCCR00182 Decided: May 19, 2026 LAND, Justice. Jerrome Tyvone Miller was charged with malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Felycya Harris after law enforcement identified him – through conversa- tions with Kianna Cunningham – as the user of a phone number that had been in contact with Harris the night of her death. In addition to connecting Miller to the phone number, Cunningham identified Miller as the man who shot her a year after the Harris shooting. Miller filed a pre-trial motion to exclude Cunningham’s testimony, specifically as it related to the alleged shooting against her. The trial court denied the motion, finding that the evidence of the Cunningham shooting was admissible for the purpose of establishing Miller’s identity pursuant to OCGA § 24-4-404(b) (“Rule 404(b)”). We granted Miller’s application for interlocutory appeal. On appeal, the parties agree that the trial court’s stated reason for its pre-trial ruling is an abuse of discretion, and we now vacate that ruling and remand the case to the trial court for fur- ther proceedings consistent with this opinion.  1. Background (a) The facts as alleged by the parties during the pre-trial motion hearing show as follows. In the early morning hours of October 3, 2020, Harris was shot and killed in a park in Richmond County. Investigators attempted to gain access to Harris’s cell phone but were unable to do so at the time.1 A year after Harris’s murder, investigators gained access to her phone and identified the last phone number, ending in -5309, that her phone was in communication with prior to her death. Harris’s phone had been in contact with that number, via both text and phone conversations, until the time that investiga- tors believed she was killed. In those text messages, the parties discussed “meeting up for sex” in exchange for money, 2 and the -5309 number suggested the park as a meeting location. Har- ris’s phone then received a text message from the -5309 number saying, “[H]ey, I’m here. Where are you?” The State contends that cell site location data indicates that the person using the -5309 number was “either [at the park] or was on his way there.” How- ever, investigators could not locate any subscriber information as- sociated with the -5309 number. Investigators later obtained cell phone records for the -5309 number and noticed that the first number the phone called after being activated was a number ending in -8300.3 They 1 Investigators found a 9mm shell casing at the scene, but no other forensic evidence was recovered in relation to the murder. 2 According to the State, Harris was “very notorious for extorting men” and would “sell her body for sex.” 3 Investigators were interested in this