Crawford v. State

312 Ga. 452

863 S.E.2d 75

CRAWFORD

v.The STATE.

S21A0638

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: September 21, 2021

Erica Cori Matos, Axiom Global, 797 Miller Run, Atlanta, Georgia 30349, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Office of the Attorney GeneraL, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1300, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, Deputy D.A., Burke Olivia Doherty, Richard Benjamin Caplan, Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street SW, Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3477, for Appellee.

Nahmias, Chief Justice.

Appellant Gerrod Crawford was convicted of felony murder and other crimes related to the shooting death of Antonio McBride. On appeal, he contends that the trial court should have granted his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to make a timely objection to an improper statement made by the prosecutor during her closing argument. We affirm.¹

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. In the early morning hours of November 3, 2015, Stanley Walcott drove Kahreek Flowers (who was "like a little brother" to Walcott), Appellant (Flowers's friend), Dayquan Johnson (Flowers's nephew), Jayda Carradine (Appellant's girlfriend), and Jabrea Watkins (Carradine's sister) from Jonesboro to the house of Walcott's drug dealer in Atlanta to buy some marijuana. While they were there, Antonio McBride, who was walking home from work, was killed nearby. He was shot three times, once in his back, once in his buttock, and once in his face. The two bullets found in his body were fired from the same gun.

At Appellant's trial, Johnson gave the following account of what happened when Walcott's car arrived at the dealer's house in Atlanta. Walcott went inside the house, while everyone else stayed in the car. After waiting for some time, Appellant got out of the car and "paced around the parking lot, looking upset." About five minutes later, Appellant saw someone coming and told Flowers to "come on." Flowers got out of the car, and Appellant and Flowers approached a man and "tried to rob" him. Appellant and Flowers, who each had a gun, appeared to pistol-whip the man. When the man fell to the ground at their feet, Appellant and Flowers pointed their guns at him. The man tried to get up, and Flowers shot him twice. The man started yelling, and Flowers shot him again. Appellant and Flowers then ran back to the car and got in, each still carrying a gun. Walcott returned to the car; Appellant told him, "come on, we got to go"; and Walcott got in the car and drove away.

Several months after the shooting, the police identified Flowers as a suspect. When he was interviewed by detectives on March 22, 2016,² Flowers initially said that Appellant alone got out of the car and beat and shot the victim. Flowers said that the encounter was a "lick" (which a detective testified meant a robbery). After more questioning, however, Flowers said that he and Appellant were outside the car and about seven or eight feet away from the man when the man started "reaching as if he was about to grab something" and Flowers got scared and shot at the man two or three times. Appellant did not fire, but he pulled his gun to "back[ ] [Flowers] up."³

Walcott, Watkins, and Carradine also gave accounts of that night. None of them said that they saw Appellant with a gun or fighting anyone, but Walcott testified and Watkins told a detective that Appellant and Flowers got out of the car, there was at least one gunshot, Appellant and Flowers then returned to the car, and the group drove away. Watkins also told the detective that before the gunshot, she heard Appellant and Walcott talking about robbing the drug dealer; after Appellant and Flowers returned to the car, Walcott asked, "did you bum him," and Flowers said something like "yeah, ... we shot him" or "I shot him."⁴ Carradine testified that she did not remember if Appellant and Flowers got out of the car, and she did not see or hear any shooting.

Appellant's video-recorded interview with a detective was played for the jury. Appellant claimed that Flowers and Walcott went into the house, while he, Watkins, and Carradine waited in the car;⁵ Appellant did not hear anything unusual; and eventually, Flowers and Walcott got back in the car with marijuana and everyone drove away. The defense stipulated that Appellant was a first-offender probationer. Appellant did not testify or present any witnesses at trial. His defense was that Flowers was solely responsible for the shooting. Appellant moved for a directed verdict of acquittal as to all charges at the close of the State's evidence, which the trial court denied.

2. Appellant argues that the trial court erred by not granting his directed verdict motion. See OCGA § 17-9-1 (a).⁶ We have explained that

[t]he test established in Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B) , 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), is the proper test for us to use when a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence arises from the denial of a motion for directed verdict. See Humphrey v. State , 252 Ga. 525, 527 (1), 314 S.E.2d 436 (1984). Under that test, we view all of the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. Jackson , 443 U.S. at 319 (III) (B) .

Holmes v. State , 307 Ga. 441, 443, 836 S.E.2d 97 (2019).

Appellant argues that he was entitled to a directed verdict of acquittal because Flowers admitted being the shooter and testified that Appellant was not involved in the shooting. Appellant also notes that Walcott, Watkins, and Carradine said that they did not see him holding a gun or fighting with the victim.

It is true that in two of his four stories, including the one he told at trial, Flowers said that Appellant was on the other side of the house going to the bathroom when the shooting happened, see footnote 3 above. However, Flowers initially said that Appellant alone attempted to rob and then shot the victim, and Flowers then told the detectives that Appellant had pulled a gun to back Flowers up when Flowers shot the victim.

We leave to the jury the resolution of [such] conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence, credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences derived from the facts. As long as there is some competent evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the State's case, the jury's verdict will be upheld.

Boyd v. State, 306 Ga. 204, 207, 830 S.E.2d 160 (2019) (citation and punctuation omitted).

Moreover, Flowers's account that he and Appellant worked together during the armed attack was corroborated by Johnson's testimony that Appellant got out of the car with Flowers to try to rob the victim, pistol-whipped the victim, and pointed a gun at the victim before Flowers shot the victim. And while Walcott, Watkins, and Carradine claimed that they did not see Appellant with a gun, Walcott and Watkins heard at least one gunshot when Appellant was out of the car with Flowers, and Watkins heard Appellant talk about robbing someone. Thus, when properly viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence was legally sufficient to support Appellant's convictions, at least as a party to the crimes. See Jackson , 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. See also OCGA § 16-2-20 (b) (defining "party to a crime"); Jackson v. State , 303 Ga. 487, 489, 813 S.E.2d 372 (2018) ("Even where it is undisputed that the victim was shot by another person, every person concerned in the commission of the crime may be convicted of the crime.").⁷

3. Appellant also claims that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the prosecutor's assertion in closing argument that if the jury found Appellant guilty of involuntary manslaughter, he would "get away." This claim fails.

(a) At Appellant's request, involuntary manslaughter (based on affray, simple battery, and simple assault) was listed on the verdict form as a lesser included offense of the murder counts.⁸ During closing argument, the prosecutor discussed the involuntary manslaughter charge, arguing that the jury should find Appellant not guilty of that unindicted offense because the evidence showed that he and Flowers were intentionally attempting to rob McBride at gunpoint when the fatal shooting occurred. The prosecutor then said:

So there's a trick here, all right. Here's the trick. If you fill the [verdict] form out wrong, he gets off, it's called a technicality. Yeah, that's right. There is going to be a form, and if you fill it out incorrectly, he gets away. So, ladies and gentlemen, if your verdict is actually malice murder, guilty; or felony murder, guilty; do not write guilty on involuntary manslaughter, okay. I wish it wasn't this way. I wish there wasn't like a technicality where if somebody messes up a form and your true verdict is not given, but this [is] something we have to deal with.... [P]lease, if your verdict is guilty, write guilty on the appropriate line for the aggravated assault for the felony murder, because, literally, if you-all 12 people decide that, yes, he is guilty of the murder, but you write guilty on involuntary, that will be the verdict, a technicality, he will get away, that's all I'm saying.

Appellant's counsel did not object.

The trial court's final instructions to the jury included a discussion of how the jury should consider involuntary manslaughter:

After consideration of all of the evidence, before you would be authorized to return a verdict of guilty of malice murder or felony murder, ... you must

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