Harper v. State

310 Ga. 679

853 S.E.2d 645

HARPER

v.The STATE.

S20A1288

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: January 11, 2021

Stephen Randall Scarborough, Office of the Public Defender, 100 Peachtree Street NW, Suite 1600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Attorneys for the Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Elizabeth Rosenwasser, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, Deputy D.A., Tristan Wade Gillespie, A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street, S.W., 4th Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Attorneys for the Appellee.

Boggs, Justice.

Appellant Larry Alfonza Harper, Jr., was convicted of the malice murder of his 20-year-old girlfriend, Thandiwe "Tandy" Hunt, as well as concealing her death and tampering with evidence. He contends that the trial court erred in ruling that his pretrial statements to the police in 2011 and 2012 were admissible. We affirm.¹

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence at trial showed the following. In the fall of 2010, Hunt moved from North Carolina to Atlanta to pursue a relationship with Appellant. Appellant and Hunt were not doing well financially and were living in what Jonell Awosika, Hunt's best friend since middle school, described as "cheap hotels." Appellant and Hunt stayed at a hotel in Decatur from November 25, 2010, through January 31, 2011, where the general manager, who lived on the property, saw them together every day.

Hunt wanted to leave Appellant, but whenever she mentioned leaving him, he threatened to hurt her, and she was scared for her life. Hunt's mother last saw Hunt alive the final week of January 2011. On the afternoon of January 30, Awosika spoke to Hunt by telephone. At one point, Hunt put down the phone, and Awosika heard Appellant and Hunt "tussling" in the background. Hunt briefly resumed talking to Awosika and then abruptly said that she would have to call Awosika back and hung up. Awosika never heard from Hunt again, and Hunt no longer posted any content on social media, which was very unusual.

On February 2, 2011, a postal worker delivering mail in Fulton County stopped briefly at a wooded lot, where he saw a suspicious object about 60 feet from the road and called 911. When officers arrived, they found something in the shape of a body completely sealed in two large black trash bags wrapped several times around with duct tape. An officer cut into one of the bags and saw a naked woman inside. The body was transported to the medical examiner's office. There was no identification on or near the body, and for the next three weeks, law enforcement officers were unable to determine who it was. Finally, on February 28, 2011, Hunt's mother identified the body as that of Hunt.

On March 6, 2011, Appellant spoke to the lead detective on the case and another detective at police headquarters. In the video-recorded interview, which was later played for the jury, Appellant admitted that he knew Hunt but insisted that the last time he saw her was in late December 2010 or early January 2011. He denied living with Hunt and claimed that he only met up with her occasionally to have sex, which he said happened no more than ten times from October to December 2010. About halfway through the interview, Appellant consented to give a DNA sample. At the end of the interview, Appellant left police headquarters.

Forensic testing showed that at the time of Hunt's death, she had only a small amount of cannabinoids in her system. The medical examiner concluded in his report that Hunt did not die of a drug overdose, that she had no natural diseases that would explain her death, and that the manner of death was homicide. Hunt had marks on both sides of her neck, and an internal exam revealed small hemorrhages in the right side of her neck and in her larynx and thyroid gland, all of which were consistent with strangulation. The medical examiner determined that Hunt died from strangulation or some other asphyxia-related cause, such as smothering or compression of the chest, and listed "homicidal violence" as the cause of death. Tests run on swabs of Hunt's chest later revealed the presence of saliva containing Appellant's DNA. On July 30, 2012, a Fulton County magistrate judge issued a warrant for Appellant's arrest.

On September 28, 2012, Appellant was arrested and taken to police headquarters, where he spoke to two homicide detectives. The video-recorded interview was later played for the jury. At the outset, Appellant again denied living with Hunt at the hotel in Decatur, saying that he only visited her there and could not remember the last time he saw her because he was involved with "so many women." When the detectives informed Appellant that his DNA was found on Hunt's body, he changed his story, claiming that he deeply loved Hunt, that he found her dead in the hotel room after she committed suicide, and that the reason his DNA was found on her body was because he was crying. According to Appellant, Hunt left him a note, which he later burned, telling him to get rid of all her things and how she wanted him to dispose of her body, which he followed "step by step." During a break in the interview, one of the detectives lent his cell phone to Appellant to make a call. Appellant told the person he called, "they got me ..., but I ain't tell them everything.... I told them I found the body." After the call, Appellant tore a clock off the wall and attempted to disable a camera hidden inside.

The police obtained hair samples from Appellant to compare to hairs found on Hunt's body and on the duct tape wrapped around the trash bags. An expert in forensic microanalysis concluded that two pubic hairs on the duct tape originated from Appellant or from someone whose pubic hair has the exact same microscopic characteristics, which would be rare.

Appellant does not challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. Nevertheless, we have reviewed the record and conclude that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also Vega v. State , 285 Ga. 32, 33, 673 S.E.2d 223 (2009) (" ‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ " (citation omitted)).²

2. Appellant contends that the trial court erred in failing to suppress his March 6, 2011 interview, asserting that he was in custody and spoke without a valid waiver of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

A person is considered to be in custody and Miranda warnings are required when a person is (1) formally arrested or (2) restrained to the degree associated with a formal arrest. Unless a reasonable person in the suspect's situation would perceive that he was in custody, Miranda warnings are not necessary. On appeal, the issue is whether the trial court was clearly erroneous in its factual findings regarding the admissibility of the statements.

Sewell v. State , 283 Ga. 558, 560-561, 662 S.E.2d 537 (2008) (citations and punctuation omitted).

Before trial, when Appellant was represented by counsel, the trial court held a hearing pursuant to Jackson v. Denno , 378 U.S. 368, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964), to determine the admissibility of the video recordings of Appellant's police interviews. The lead detective testified that on Sunday, March 6, 2011, he called Appellant's uncle, who said that Appellant was at church with his aunt. According to the detective, he went to the church and waited, and when church was over, Appellant walked to a nearby convenience store. The detective and a patrol officer approached Appellant, identified themselves, and asked if Appellant would mind coming to police headquarters to talk about a missing person case. Appellant was "really nice," said that he did not mind going to headquarters to talk with them, and willingly got into the back of the patrol car. Appellant was not told that he was under arrest or handcuffed, and neither the lead detective nor the patrol officer physically took hold of Appellant. The patrol officer drove Appellant to police headquarters and led him to an interview room, where Appellant was interviewed by the lead detective and another homicide detective. A video recording of the interview was admitted at the hearing. The detectives did not threaten Appellant, and when Appellant asked if he was free to leave, the lead detective replied, "At any time." When Appellant expressed concern that his aunt was going to leave church without him, the lead detective offered to give him a ride to his aunt's house. At the end of the interview, which lasted a little more than an hour, Appellant left police headquarters.

The trial court was entitled to credit the lead detective's testimony and to conclude, based on that testimony and the video recording, that a reasonable person in Appellant's situation would not have perceived that he was in custody. Appellant voluntarily went with the lead detective and the patrol officer to police headquarters; was not...