Hughes v. State

312 Ga. 149

861 S.E.2d 94

HUGHES

v.The STATE.

S21A0730

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: July 7, 2021

David Edward Clark, Clark & Towne, P.C., 1755 North Brown Road, Suite 200, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, for Appellant.

Penny Alane Penn, District Attorney, Heather Nicole Dunn, A.D.A., Forsyth County District Attorney's Office, 101 E. Courthouse Square, Ste 2075, Cumming, Georgia 30040, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Cody M. Long, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Appellee.

Boggs, Presiding Justice.

Appellant Re'Dayon Hughes challenges his 2019 convictions for felony murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Dre'Landon Brown.¹ Appellant contends that the trial court erred by admitting evidence that he vandalized Marjorie Reed's car, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to question Appellant about alleged prior difficulties with Dre'Landon and for failing to object to the admission of other prior difficulties evidence, that the cumulative prejudice of these errors requires a new trial, and that the trial court erroneously considered Appellant's failure to retreat in denying his pretrial motion for immunity. We affirm.

The evidence presented at trial showed the following. On November 23, 2017, Appellant shot and killed Dre'Landon as Appellant fled the Brown family home. Appellant admitted to shooting Dre'Landon but claimed that it was done in self-defense because Dre'Landon was chasing him down the stairs of the Brown family home with a gun.

Earlier that evening, Appellant sneaked into the home of Reed and her teenage grandchildren — Marjorie Brown, Absolom Brown, Dre'Landon, and Jaymareion Brown — to meet with Marjorie, who had recently given birth to Appellant's child. Appellant was carrying a loaded gun and a backpack with a few rounds of loose ammunition. Reed had banned Appellant from her home and from contact with Marjorie, who was herself barred from contact with Appellant under court order.

After Jaymareion and Dre'Landon saw a photo on social media of Appellant, Marjorie, and their child in what looked like Marjorie's bedroom, the two brothers confronted Marjorie at her bedroom door. When she denied that Appellant was in the room, Jaymareion pushed into the room with Dre'Landon following behind. Not seeing Appellant in the room, Jaymareion opened the closet door to find Appellant hiding inside. Appellant then pointed a gun at Jaymareion, who exclaimed, "So you're going to bring a gun into our house." When Appellant did not respond, Jaymareion said, "Bro, just leave." Appellant pointed his gun at both brothers, who remained still, as he first exited the closet and then the room.

Seconds later, as Appellant proceeded downstairs, Dre'Landon left Marjorie's room and followed Appellant down the stairs. When Appellant reached the bottom of the stairs, rather than go out the nearby front door, Appellant stopped, turned around, and shot Dre'Landon twice in the chest and once more as he fell. Meanwhile, Jaymareion left the bedroom and went straight down the stairs. When he reached the final step, he heard gunshots and ran back up the stairs. Appellant fled out the back door and hid in some nearby bushes.

Jaymareion ran back down the stairs to find Dre'Landon bleeding on the floor. Jaymareion attempted to stop the bleeding and called the police. Jaymareion saw no gun near his brother.

While Jaymareion tended to his brother's wounds, Marjorie went out the front door to look for Appellant. Upon finding him, she agreed to grab their child, get the keys to the family car, and leave with him. She went back inside, took the child, and brought him to Appellant. She then returned to the house to pack her things, but Reed stopped her from leaving until the police arrived.

By the time the police arrived, Dre'Landon was dead. The police found and arrested Appellant one block from the house. In searching the home for Appellant's firearm, the police found a few rounds of loose ammunition in the backpack Appellant had left inside Marjorie's closet. A specialized canine unit also searched the premises for the missing firearm and located it near an air conditioning unit at an adjoining house. No other working gun was ever found.² According to the autopsy, there was no soot on Dre'Landon's skin, indicating that he was shot from a distance of at least three feet away.

A series of confrontations had occurred between Appellant and various members of Dre'Landon's family in the months leading up to the shooting death of Dre'Landon. Initially, Dre'Landon's family had lived in Roswell, where Appellant and Marjorie met at school and started dating. According to Reed, Marjorie's behavior started to change when she began dating Appellant. She began running away with Appellant and started drinking, using drugs, and breaking into and sleeping in abandoned places. Reed also heard that Appellant had "beat up" Marjorie. These events led Reed to prohibit the two teenagers from seeing each other, including barring Appellant from her home.

Appellant's relationship with Marjorie continued, however, generating rumors at school that the two were engaging in sexual activity. Absolom and Jaymareion each confronted Appellant separately at school over the rumors and his derogatory sexual comments about Marjorie. During the interaction with Jaymareion at school, Appellant became angry and the two boys began threatening each other. A teacher separated them before a fight broke out.

Sometime later, while walking down a trail behind the family home, Absolom saw Appellant with another unidentified person. Absolom told Appellant to wait, went home, and returned with Jaymareion and Dre'Landon. Absolom noticed that Appellant appeared to be holding an AR-15-style rifle. Absolom, scared, began to move away before realizing the rifle was only a BB gun. The unknown person with Appellant then approached the three brothers and asked whether Absolom wanted to fight. Jaymareion interjected that no one would fight his brother without also fighting him. Appellant then threatened to kill the brothers.

During yet another incident, Jaymareion and Dre'Landon caught Appellant inside of their home and punched him. They then ushered Appellant outside and reminded him that he was not allowed in the family home.

At some point, Reed invited Appellant to talk with her. Reed made it clear to Appellant that he was not allowed in the family home. Immediately following this discussion, Reed found her car vandalized: all four tires had been slashed and the windshield broken. Appellant admitted to Marjorie that he had vandalized Reed's car; Marjorie told the rest of the family.

Finally, in the summer of 2017, to give Marjorie "a clean break away from all that badness" in Roswell, Reed moved the family to a new home in Forsyth County. In November 2017, Marjorie gave birth to Appellant's child. After the move to Forsyth County, Reed once again prohibited Appellant from being in the family home and told Marjorie not to tell Appellant their new address. Marjorie, however, told Appellant the new address and continued her relationship with him.

1. Appellant claims that the trial court erred by denying his motion in limine and admitting testimony that Appellant vandalized Reed's car. In denying the motion in limine, the trial court explained that the testimony was appropriate prior difficulties evidence and that it explained the relationships and circumstances leading to the charges in this case. Appellant argues that the evidence was inadmissible because it was neither intrinsic to the charged offenses nor evidence of prior difficulties between Appellant and the victims under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b). We disagree.

Evidence is intrinsic when it pertains "to the chain of events explaining the context, motive, and set-up of the crime," and is admissible so long as it is "linked in time and circumstances with the charged crime, ... forms an integral and natural part of an account of the crime, or is necessary to complete the story of the crime for the jury[.]" Heade v. State , Case No. S21A0409, ––– Ga. ––––, ––––, 860 S.E.2d 509, 514-15 (decided June 21, 2021) (citation and punctuation omitted). "There is no bright-line rule regarding how close in time evidence must be to the charged offenses, or requiring evidence to pertain directly to the victims of the charged offenses, for that evidence to be admitted properly as intrinsic evidence." Id. (citation and punctuation omitted). "We review a trial court's ruling admitting evidence as intrinsic for an abuse of discretion." Id. (citation and punctuation omitted).

Here, the evidence that Appellant vandalized Reed's car was a part of the chain of events leading to the charged crimes. Occurring amidst a series of escalating threats and acts of violence by Appellant and members of Dre'Landon's family, it showed the tension in the relationship between the persons involved in this case, was a precipitating cause for the family's relocation from Roswell to Forsyth County, and explained, in part, why Appellant was not permitted in Reed's home the night of the shooting. When considered in light of the other evidence in this case, we cannot conclude that the trial court abused its discretion by concluding that the evidence that Appellant vandalized Reed's car was reasonably necessary to complete the story for the jury and was therefore intrinsic evidence. See Clark v. State , 306 Ga. 367, 374, 829 S.E.2d 306 (2019) (concluding that evidence was intrinsic in part because it explained why appellant was not welcome in the victim's home).

Of course, intrinsic evidence may be "excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury or by considerations of undue delay,...