Carl Neil Morey v. State

── Carl Neil Morey v. State ── Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia Date: June 04, 2026 Category: General FOURTH DIVISION MCFADDEN, P. J., WATKINS and PADGETT, JJ. NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be physically received in our clerk’s office within ten days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed. https://www.gaappeals.us/rules June 4, 2026 In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A26A0245. MOREY v. THE STATE. MCFADDEN, Presiding Judge. After a jury trial, Carl Morey was convicted of the theft by taking of currency from Cordele Metal Works, Inc., for which his construction business worked as a subcontractor. The state’s evidence showed that, with the assistance of Cordele Metal Works project manager Clint Musselwhite, he inflated his invoices. The trial court denied Morey’s motion for new trial. On appeal, he argues that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel, but he has not shown both deficient performance and prejudice. He also argues that the trial court erred in allowing the state to present victim-impact evidence in the guilt/innocence phase of his trial, but he has not shown harmful error. He also has not shown cumulative error. So we affirm. 1. Facts and procedural posture Because Morey does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions, “we review only the evidence presented at trial that is relevant to [his] enumerations of error and any factual background needed to provide context for them.” Eaker v. State, 315 Ga. 202, 203(1) (881 SE2d 673) (2022). The trial evidence showed that Morey’s construction business worked as a subcontractor for Cordele Metal Works, the victim in this case. Cordele Metal Works, a sheet metal fabrication company, was one of two family businesses owned by Joe Cook. Joe Cook’s son, Mac Cook, was the president of the other family business and a shareholder of Cordele Metal Works. In 2008, Cordele Metal Works purchased the assets of a business that specialized in the fabrication and installation of metal stairs and handrails in buildings. The former owner of that business, Clint Musselwhite, was a lifelong friend of Mac Cook and became a full-time employee of Cordele Metal Works managing projects involving metal stairs and handrails. Musselwhite used Morey as the exclusive subcontractor for the vast majority of those projects. 2  Cordele Metal Works paid Morey for his work on the projects using a tool called a “schedule of values.” The schedule of values was a chart, created by either Musselwhite or, later, an estimator employed by Cordele Metals Works, that assigned dollar values to the work to be done on a job Cordele Metal Works’s then-general manager, Don Barnes,1 would use the schedule of values as a reference when approving Morey’s invoices, which Morey submitted to Musselwhite. Barnes testified that he performed a “cursory check” of the invoices but that he had only a limited knowledge of the work actually performed and trusted that the work was as represented on the invoices. In 2020, Joe Cook asked Mac Cook to look into losses at Cordele Metal Works. In Joe Cook’s words, the company was “not making money when it should have” and was losing money on big jobs. Before that point, the Cooks had taken a hands-off approach to managing Cordele Metal Works for several reasons: Joe Cook was limited by a serious medical condition (he suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS); the Cooks trusted the management team in place at Cordele Metal Works; and 1 Cordele Metal Works subsequently demoted Barnes. 3 they specifically relied on Musselwhite’s experience in the stairs and handrails industry, experience that they themselves