Jones v. State

311 Ga. 455

858 S.E.2d 462

JONES

v.The STATE.

S21A0035

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: May 17, 2021

Randall P. Sharp, for appellant.

John A. Fitzner III, District Attorney, Jessica B. Wilson, Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, William C. Enfinger, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Nahmias, Presiding Justice.

Appellant Alpherd Jones was convicted of felony murder in connection with the beating death of his girlfriend, LaShanda January. In this appeal, he contends that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of January's diary entries under OCGA § 24-8-807 and by admitting other-acts evidence under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b). We affirm.¹

1. (a) Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at Appellant's trial showed the following. On May 4, 2017, January did not show up for her 4:00 p.m. shift at the restaurant where she worked. Around 4:15 or 4:30 p.m., a co-worker called the motel where January stayed in Vidalia. A male voice answered the phone; identified himself as January's boyfriend, whom the co-worker knew to be Appellant; and said that January had not been feeling well, took some medicine, lay down, and was not responding to him. The co-worker suggested that Appellant call for an ambulance.

About six hours later, at 10:26 p.m., Appellant called 911 and said that January was vomiting blood. When paramedics arrived at the motel room, January was lying on the bed, unresponsive. There was bruising around her eyes and on the side of her head; her face was swollen; her eyes were dilated; and there was dried, vomited blood on the bed. Both paramedics testified that, given January's injuries, they suspected that she had been beaten. When one of them asked Appellant what had happened, he said that January fell in the bathtub and hit her head, lay down on the bed because she felt unwell, and later started vomiting. He also claimed that January had been talking with him moments before the paramedics arrived.

A police officer who arrived while the paramedics were tending to January observed scratches on Appellant's left arm that appeared to have been caused by fingernails. Appellant told the officer that January's injuries were "accidental." Appellant then left to pick up January's seven-year-old godson C. L., who lived with them in the motel room but was at a friend's house. Officers searched the room and found blood on a pillow, two washcloths, and the bed where January had been lying and small amounts of blood on the sink, toilet, and bathroom floor. There was no damage to the bathtub, which was dry. The officers collected three cell phones; a later download of the data from one of the phones showed that its web browser was used to search for "what to put on a black eye" at 5:32 p.m. on the day that January was injured.

When Appellant returned to the motel with C. L., an officer interviewed Appellant there; the interview was audio recorded, and the recording was later played for the jury. Appellant told the following story. January, who regularly took blood pressure medication, was not feeling well that day. At one point, while she was sitting on the toilet, she fell into the bathtub and hit her head. Appellant helped her lie down on the bed, but she then fell off the bed onto the floor. She took two Aleve tablets, and they both lay down on the bed. When Appellant next checked on her, she did not answer him and vomited blood, and he called 911. When the officer said that he did not believe Appellant, Appellant admitted that he and January had argued but maintained that he had not hurt her.

Around 3:00 a.m., the officer interviewed Appellant again at a police station; this interview was video recorded, and the recording was also played for the jury. Appellant told the officer the following. He and January had been dating for about two years. She sometimes had headaches due to her high blood pressure, and on the previous day, she told him that her blood pressure was high and that she was not feeling well. She took a bath but at some point fell backward and hit her head on the soap dish that protruded from the wall of the bathtub. He helped her up, and she sat on the toilet. She then vomited, and he cleaned up the bathroom. He helped her walk toward the bed, where she sat down, fell forward, hit her head on the railing at the edge of the bed, and fell between the bed and the wall. He helped her up, and they both fell asleep on the bed. When he awoke, she vomited blood, and he called 911. He insisted that he had not hurt January. When the officer asked him to tell the truth, Appellant said, "I'll talk when the appropriate time comes." After the interview, Appellant was arrested. Several days later, during an interview with another investigator, Appellant said that he and January "g[o]t along just fine," but "it was just one of those days," and he "can't take it back."

Early on the morning after January was injured, the officer interviewed C. L. at the motel. C. L. said that on the previous day, Appellant hit January hard in the stomach with his hands and threw her on the bed, that her eye was red, and that Appellant then told C. L. to go into the bathroom, where C. L. heard January say, "Al, no." Also at the motel, C. L. told a caseworker from the Division of Family and Children Services that January had been punched, kicked, and dragged across the floor by her hair and that she had blood coming out of her mouth. C. L. also told the caseworker that "there was a big knife." During a forensic interview later that day, C. L. said that he saw Appellant punching January in her nose, mouth, and cheek, kicking her in the stomach, and dragging her by the hair. C. L. said he was then sent to the bathroom and heard January say, "No, Al, no, stop, stop." He also said that Appellant had a knife but put it down. C. L. briefly testified at trial that he saw January "g[e]t killed" and that she was stabbed.²

When January arrived at the hospital, she was unconscious, her face was swollen and bruised, she had no reflexes, and she had been intubated because she was unable to breathe on her own. CAT scans showed that January had a large bleed in her brain that was causing the brain to herniate into the brain stem. A radiologist who reviewed January's CAT scans testified that it was one of the worst brain injuries he had seen, likening it to the type of trauma caused by a severe car wreck. The CAT scans also showed a fractured scapula, four broken ribs, and a fractured pelvis. The radiologist testified that these injuries were inconsistent with Appellant's version of events. January was pronounced clinically brain dead two weeks later; she was then removed from her breathing machine and died moments later. An autopsy showed that her cause of death was multiple blunt force trauma injuries, and the medical examiner testified that January's injuries were not consistent with a fall in the bathtub or off a bed.

The State also presented evidence that January had written in her diary about Appellant's anger and her fear of him, which left her constantly worried. In addition, to show Appellant's criminal intent, the State presented other acts evidence about an incident in December 2004 in which Appellant hit, kicked, and stabbed his then-girlfriend, Jessica Porter, in their home after she told him that she wanted to break up; he then claimed to the police that he had accidentally stabbed her when he tried to take a knife away from her. Appellant did not testify at trial.

(b) Appellant contends that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support his conviction under Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Appellant asserts that some of the State's witnesses were not credible, but " ‘[i]t was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ " Vega v. State , 285 Ga. 32, 33, 673 S.E.2d 223 (2009) (citation omitted).

Appellant also asserts that the State failed to prove his criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt. But when properly viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, see Jackson , 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, the evidence presented at trial showed that Appellant was the only person in the motel room with C. L. and January when she was injured, and C. L.’s statements established that January's injuries were the result of Appellant's violent attack. Moreover, after Appellant reported to January's co-worker that January was unresponsive, he waited several hours before calling 911. He then gave shifting accounts of how January was injured, and the medical evidence was inconsistent with his claims that her injuries were accidental. Finally, the State presented evidence that Appellant had committed a similar attack against his former girlfriend.

This evidence authorized a rational jury to conclude that Appellant acted with the malicious intent to cause January bodily harm, which resulted in her death. See OCGA §§ 16-5-24 (a) (defining ‘‘aggravated battery’’); 16-5-1 (c) (defining ‘‘felony murder’’). Thus, the evidence presented at Appellant's trial was sufficient to authorize the jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of felony murder based on aggravated battery. See Jackson , 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781. See also Valrie v. State , 308 Ga. 563, 564-566, 842 S.E.2d 279 (2020) (holding that the defendant's felony murder conviction based on aggravated battery was supported by sufficient evidence, including medical evidence that contradicted his shifting stories to the police and his failure to promptly seek aid for the victim).

2. Appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of January's...