Draper L. Lucas v. State

Court of Appeals
of the State of Georgia

ATLANTA,____________________
May 05, 2026

The Court of Appeals hereby passes the following order:

A26A0518. LUCAS v. THE STATE.

Draper Lucas was tried by a jury and convicted of two counts of aggravated
child molestation, one count of aggravated sexual battery, and one count of incest.
Lucas appealed to this Court from the trial court’s order denying his motion for new
trial. At the motion for new trial hearing, Lucas called into question whether one of
the special conditions of probation that was ultimately included in his corrected final
disposition order was sufficiently clear under the First Amendment and the
Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court implicitly rejected Lucas’s argument by
including the special condition at issue in the corrected final disposition order.
We conclude that the case should be transferred to the Supreme Court of
Georgia. Because Lucas’s argument calls into question the constitutionality of the
special condition of probation, and the trial court implicitly rejected this constitutional
argument, it appears that jurisdiction may lie in the Supreme Court, despite the fact
that the case may ultimately be resolved on other grounds. See Harrison v. Wigington,
269 Ga. 388, 388 (497 SE2d 568) (1998) (“If a constitutional question is raised and
ruled on below, [the Supreme] Court has exclusive appellate jurisdiction, and this is
true, although upon a consideration of the entire case, [the Supreme] [C]ourt
determines that a decision upon such constitutional questions is not necessary to a
proper solution of the case, and makes no decision thereon.” (punctuation omitted)).
As the Supreme Court has the ultimate responsibility for determining appellate
jurisdiction, see Saxton v. Coastal Dialysis & Med. Clinic, 267 Ga. 177, 178 (476 SE2d
587) (1996), this case is hereby TRANSFERRED to the Supreme Court for
disposition.

Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia
Clerk’s Office, Atlanta,____________________
05/05/2026
I certify that the above is a true extract from
the minutes of the Court of Appeals of Georgia.
Witness my signature and the seal of said court
hereto affixed the day and year last above written.

, Clerk.