Bellamy v. Rumer

George Bellamy was convicted of malice murder in 1998. The indictment named him as “George Bellamy aka Michael Johnson aka Lamar Ellison.” In 2014, Bellamy filed pro se a “Motion for Leave to Correct Indictment Misnomer,” asserting that his legal name was actually Michael Johnson and that Bellamy was an alias. The motion was denied in 2014, and the Georgia Supreme Court dismissed his untimely direct appeal of that order in February 2015. On July 3, 2017, with the assistance of counsel, Bellamy filed a substantially similar second motion entitled “Motion to Correct Clerical Error.” In April 2018, after two requests for a ruling had gone unanswered, Bellamy, pro se, filed a “Petition for Writ of Mandamus,” seeking to have the judge that presided over his trial “consider and issue a ruling on the pending motion to correct the clerical error.” Based on the Supreme Court’s review of the record, it concluded the superior court’s order denying the filing of Bellamy’s mandamus petition pursuant to OCGA 9-15-2 (d) was made in error: the record showed that, when Bellamy filed the mandamus petition, he had been waiting for a ruling on his motion for nine months, which was considerably outside the maximum period during which a judge was required to decide a pending motion. The order denying the filing of Bellamy’s mandamus petition was reversed. View "Bellamy v. Rumer" on Justia Law