Suzzette Marie Calloway, 44, was serving a life sentence for murder, which the Georgia Supreme Court overturned MondayThe Georgia Supreme Court on Monday overturned a Catoosa County, Ga., woman's murder conviction.
The court ruled local prosecutors should not have pursued the charge against Suzzette Marie Calloway a decade ago because another jury had already convicted her for the same crime. Police arrested Calloway and her husband in 2001 after their batch of methamphetamine caught fire, causing severe burns to 30 percent of the body of Chelton, their 15-month-old baby.
Doctors treated Chelton at the Shriner's Burn Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, performing 10 skin graft surgeries. The Department of Family and Children's Services later put him in a foster home in Rome, Ga. When a doctor changed his tracheostomy tube, which was supposed to keep hot air out of his damaged airways, Chelton stopped breathing. He became brain dead. And with his parents' permission, a doctor pulled him off life support.
In December 2002, attorneys for Calloway argued that she and her husband, Christopher Pierre Hicks, said a space heater actually caused the fire. But a jury convicted them of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, attempt to manufacture methamphetamine and creating a substantial risk while attempting to manufacture meth. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Fourteen months later, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Herbert "Buzz" Franklin brought his own case against Calloway and Hicks in Catoosa County, charging them with murder. A jury convicted them of life in prison, plus an extra 30 years.
LaFayette attorney Jennifer Hildebrand appealed Calloway's conviction in August. On Monday, the state Supreme Court justices agreed that Georgia's double jeopardy provision protected her from the murder conviction. She had already been convicted of a similar action in federal court: creating a substantial risk while attempting to manufacture methamphetamine.
"The state and federal prosecutions were for crimes that arose from the same underlying conduct," Justice Nels S.D. Peterson wrote.
However, he added, Franklin was still allowed to prosecute Calloway for the charge of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. As a legal technicality, that count and the federal count of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine require different elements for a criminal conviction.
The supreme court moved Calloway's case back to Catoosa County, where a local judge can hold a hearing to determine what sentence she should get for the drug charges. Calloway now is locked up at Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Ga.
Hildebrand and Franklin did not return emails seeking comment Monday.
Hicks, convicted under the same circumstances, is still serving a life sentence.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.