Carson v. State

308 Ga. 761

843 S.E.2d 421

CARSON

v.The STATE.

S20A0288

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: May 18, 2020

Viveca B. Famber, for appellant.

Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey H. Rudder, Aslean Z. Eaglin, Assistant District Attorneys; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Alex M. Bernick, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Ellington, Justice.

Anderson Carson was tried before a Fulton County jury and convicted of the malice murder of Lee Sokol and the robbery by force of Fred Hickson.¹ Carson contends on appeal that the trial court erred in (1) denying his motion to sever, (2) appearing to assist the State in its prosecution by recommending that the State procure material witness warrants, (3) permitting the introduction into evidence of Carson's prior conviction for aggravated assault, (4) allowing the State to introduce into evidence a booking photograph without providing the photograph to the defense in accordance with the State's discovery obligations, (5) denying his motion to exclude his statements to a police detective, (6) denying his motion to suppress, and (7) failing to strike a prospective juror for cause. Carson also contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdicts. We affirm for the reasons set forth below.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts, the evidence presented at trial shows the following. On the morning of June 9, 2009, a teacher at E. Rivers Elementary School in Atlanta looked out of his classroom window and saw a man's body lying in the courtyard. City of Atlanta police officers responded to the scene around 7:30 a.m. The decedent, later identified as Sokol, had suffered severe head wounds. A bloody rock was lying two to three feet away from the body.

Detective William Murdock noticed that cameras had been placed around the school and asked Atlanta Public Schools for a copy of the video. After speaking with the teacher who discovered the body, Murdock and other officers canvassed the school and nearby areas but were unable to locate any additional witnesses.

Later in the day, Detective Murdock attended the autopsy of the victim. The medical examiner determined that Sokol had died from blunt force injuries to the head. While Detective Murdock was at the medical examiner's office, he received a report that Carson had been arrested at approximately 12:15 a.m. the night before near Piedmont Hospital on a charge of robbery of a pedestrian. That location was less than a mile from the elementary school. The sequence of violent crimes stood out to Detective Murdock because those types of crime were rare in that area of the city.

Detective Murdock arranged for the Fulton County sheriff to have Carson remanded to his custody for purposes of an interview, which occurred on June 9. Before the interview, Detective Murdock received two video images recorded by the school's cameras. One frame, taken at 10:43 p.m. on June 8, showed a man wearing all black clothing, white shoes, and carrying a light colored bag. The other image, time stamped 10:48 p.m., showed another man wearing long dark or blue shorts and a hooded sweatshirt.

During the interview, Detective Murdock read Carson his Miranda² rights. Carson then denied having been anywhere near the elementary school. Carson also said that he had been wearing jean shorts and a "hoodie sweatshirt" on the night of his arrest. Detective Murdock applied for and obtained a search warrant for the clothes Carson had been wearing when he was arrested. A GBI forensic analyst testified that DNA obtained from blood on Carson's clothes, as well as from the rock found at the scene, originated from Sokol.

Three days after interviewing Carson, Detective Murdock received 12 hours of video recordings from the elementary school's security cameras. Portions of the video recordings were played for the jury at trial. None of the cameras had been pointed at the courtyard area where Sokol's body was found. However, a man wearing long shorts and a light-colored hooded sweatshirt was shown entering the school property after 10:39 p.m. A second man, dressed in black clothes and wearing white tennis shoes, was seen at 10:43 p.m. walking into the courtyard and off camera. The second man's clothing matched that worn by Sokol. The man wearing a hood walked in and out of the view of the cameras several times, including walking into and out of the courtyard area. The man with the hood was last seen on the school's video at 11:31 p.m.

The State also presented evidence of the robbery that occurred the night before Sokol's body was discovered. In the early morning of June 9, 2009, Fred Hickson and his cousin left Piedmont Hospital and waited for their cab to arrive. Carson came from behind Hickson and punched him in the face. After Hickson turned around in shock, Carson took Hickson's jacket and ran. Hickson and his cousin ran after Carson, who picked up a brick and confronted the two men.

A City of Atlanta police officer was driving by Piedmont Hospital shortly after midnight on June 9 when he saw Hickson and his cousin chasing Carson through the parking lot. The officer stopped the two cousins, and then Carson. Carson was arrested and taken to jail. Hickson's jacket was recovered at the scene.

The State also introduced evidence of a similar transaction. Jory Hardin testified that on December 1, 2003, he was working as a uniformed police officer with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. When Officer Hardin opened the Civic Center station at 4:00 a.m. that morning, Carson hit Officer Hardin in the head with a brick.

1. Carson claims that the evidence was insufficient for a rational trier of fact to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault of Sokol because the State relied on circumstantial evidence which did not exclude all reasonable hypotheses other than his guilt.

Under both former OCGA § 24-4-6, in effect at the time of [Carson's] trial, and present OCGA § 24-14-6, in order to convict [Carson] of the crimes based solely upon circumstantial evidence, the proven facts had to be consistent with the hypothesis of his guilt and exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of his guilt. Not every hypothesis is reasonable, and the evidence does not have to exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis; it need rule out only those that are reasonable. The reasonableness of an alternative hypothesis raised by a defendant is a question principally for the jury, and when the jury is authorized to find that the evidence, though circumstantial, is sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of the accused's guilt, this Court will not disturb that finding unless it is insupportable as a matter of law.

Cochran v. State , 305 Ga. 827, 829 (1), 828 S.E.2d 338 (2019) (citation and punctuation omitted).

Carson argues that the evidence failed to exclude the reasonable possibility that other persons killed Sokol or that Carson's involvement in Sokol's death, if any, did not rise to the level of malice murder, felony murder, or aggravated assault. However, a jury could have reasonably inferred from the evidence that Sokol was bludgeoned to death with the bloody rock found at the scene. DNA evidence showed that Sokol's blood was on Carson's clothes. It could also be inferred that the two persons seen before midnight on the school's video were Carson and Sokol. Although Carson points to Detective Murdock's testimony that the school's video showed several persons on school property around 6:00 a.m., which was before Sokol's body was discovered, Carson does not point to evidence showing that those persons came into contact with Sokol. On the other hand, the evidence showed that Carson had been in contact with Sokol hours earlier given that he was wearing clothing containing Sokol's blood when he was arrested on the robbery charge shortly after midnight. The evidence, though circumstantial, was sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than Carson's guilt, see former OCGA § 24-4-6, and for a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Carson was guilty of the malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault of Sokol. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 319 (III) (B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Carson contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to sever the charges alleging the robbery and battery of Hickson from the charges alleging the murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault of Sokol. In a related claim of error, Carson contends that the trial court erred by characterizing the charged offenses as a "crime spree" while hearing argument on the motion to sever.

(a) We first consider whether the trial court erred in denying the motion to sever. Where offenses are joined in a single indictment,

a defendant has a right to severance where the offenses are joined solely on the ground that they are of the same or similar character because of the great risk of prejudice from a joint disposition of unrelated charges. However, where the joinder is based upon the same conduct or on a series of acts connected together or constituting parts of a single scheme or plan, severance lies within the sound discretion of the trial judge since the facts in each case are likely to be unique.

Simmons v. State , 282 Ga. 183, 185 (4), 646 S.E.2d 55 (2007) (citation and punctuation omitted). If severance is not mandatory, it is nevertheless "incumbent upon the trial court to determine whether severance was necessary to achieve a fair determination of appellant's guilt or innocence as to each offense." Hickman v. State , 299 Ga. 267, 270 (2), 787 S.E.2d 700 (2016) (citation omitted). To make that determination, "[t]he court should consider whether in view of the number of offenses charged and the complexity of the...