Jones v. State

314 Ga. 400

877 S.E.2d 232

JONES

v.The STATE.

S22A0815

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: August 9, 2022

George William Thomas, Brownstone P.A., PO Box 2047, Winter Park, Florida 32790, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, Deputy D.A., Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street, 4th Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Mathew Eli Plott, Assistant County Attorney, Office of the Fulton County Attorney, 141 Pryor Street SW, Suite 4083, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Senior A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street, 4th Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30306, for Appellee.

Colvin, Justice.

Reginald Jones appeals his convictions for malice murder and other related offenses in connection with the death of his pregnant girlfriend, Faith Bittinger.¹ Jones raises two enumerations of error.

First, he argues that the trial evidence was insufficient to establish that he killed Bittinger with malice aforethought. Second, he argues that trial counsel was ineffective for calling as a character witness Jones's neighbor, Wilton Ray Blount, Sr., because doing so permitted the State to introduce prejudicial character evidence. We affirm.

1. The evidence presented at trial showed the following.² Around 10:30 p.m. on July 8, 2017, Jones called 911 to report that his 23-year-old girlfriend, Bittinger, had shot herself in the chest with a Hi-Point .45-caliber pistol and was no longer breathing. Describing the events leading up to Bittinger's death to dispatch, Jones said, "I was here with her. We had some drinks, and she was playing with the gun, and she shot herself."

A few minutes later, Officer Joseph Franczek responded to the apartment shared by Jones and Bittinger. Jones led Officer Franczek upstairs, across a landing, and into a bedroom, where Bittinger was lying dead on her back. The Hi-Point pistol was next to her right hand; the gun's magazine was next to, and resting partially on top of, her right elbow; and an empty shell casing was on the floor near her left knee. When asked when this had happened, Jones responded, "Just a second ago. We were drinking. She was playing with the gun. And she cocked it. I said, ‘baby.’ And she shot herself." Jones told the officer that "it was an accident." Similarly, Jones told Sergeant Charles Landrum, who arrived at the scene shortly after Officer Franczek, that Bittinger had pulled the magazine out of the gun and accidentally shot herself, after which he pulled her down from the bed to the floor so he could offer aid.

Sergeant Landrum testified that he discovered an unused bullet lying on the landing outside the bedroom. A crime scene technician later determined that the bullet collected from the landing was .45 caliber, that the shell casing next to Bittinger's body was from a .45-caliber bullet, and that the eight-round magazine resting on Bittinger's arm contained only six bullets.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified that Bittinger had been shot in the chest below her collarbone, that the bullet had traveled "strongly downward" from the entrance wound, and that the gunshot wound had killed both Bittinger and her two-or-three-week-old fetus. According to the medical examiner, the lack of soot or stippling on Bittinger indicated that the gun had been fired from more than three feet away, meaning that Bittinger could not have shot herself. The medical examiner also identified numerous bruises on Bittinger's body.³

The State's firearms expert, Emily Bagwell, testified that the Hi-Point pistol had a six-and-a-quarter pound trigger pull, a manual safety, and a magazine safety, which prevented the gun from firing unless a magazine was inserted. She further testified that the Hi-Point pistol's manual safety doubled as a slide lock mechanism and that she had determined from testing that the magazine safety was properly functioning.⁴

The State called several witnesses to testify about events leading up to Bittinger's death. The evidence showed that Bittinger was living in Florida with family members in 2015. In 2016, Bittinger, who had a son from a prior relationship, moved back to Georgia and started dating Jones. Bittinger and Jones eventually moved in with Bittinger's stepfather, Dennis Martin. Dennis testified that, while the couple lived with him, he "thought things were good" in their relationship, and he saw "[n]o physical violence" or threats.

In August 2016, Bittinger, Bittinger's son, and Jones moved into the basement of a house owned by Kristin Minnis, one of Bittinger's relatives. Shortly thereafter, Bittinger, who was pregnant with Jones's child, gave birth to a daughter. Kristin testified that she did not notice any relationship problems between Bittinger and Jones until January 2017, when she heard Bittinger screaming and a loud banging noise in the basement. Kristin went to the basement door, where she heard Bittinger yelling, "Stop, stop." When Kristin opened the door, Bittinger ran to the doorway with Jones following behind her. Bittinger's lip and eye were bloody. When Kristin told them that she would not tolerate such behavior in her house and they had to move out, Jones responded, "Oh, it was me. I get the blame for everything."

Although the couple temporarily left the house, they did not immediately move out. Soon after the incident, Jones approached Kristin, saying, "I owe you an apology. What I did was wrong and I should not have done it." Kristin responded "You're right. You should not have put your hands on her. You are not supposed to do that as a man." In response, Jones said, "She just pushes my buttons and she knows what to do."

Later that month, Bittinger's sister-in-law, Kayla Minnis, who also lived in Kristin's house, heard Jones and Bittinger arguing in the basement. Kayla heard Bittinger trying to come up the stairs while saying, "Let me go. Let me go." Shortly thereafter, Bittinger came upstairs, and Kayla observed that Bittinger had distinct finger marks around her neck, a scuff on her chin, and bruising around her eye. Jones followed Bittinger upstairs and appeared to be "[v]ery angry and full of rage." When Kristin confronted Bittinger about the incident, Bittinger admitted that she and Jones had another fight and that Jones had left marks on her again. Kristin told Bittinger she had to move out by that weekend, and Bittinger did so.

Bittinger's stepsister, Olivia Martin, also started observing bruising on Bittinger's face and neck starting in late 2016 or early 2017. Initially, Bittinger avoided giving Olivia "a straight answer" about how she got the bruises. But eventually Bittinger admitted that "she had been punched in the face repeatedly" by Jones. Sometime in early 2017, Bittinger called Olivia to say she was afraid she was going to die because Jones had "attacked her while she was holding her child and punched her in the face and thrown her into a dresser and then thrown her to the ground and got on top of her and was choking her." Although Olivia encouraged Bittinger to go to the police and leave Jones, Bittinger said that Jones had threatened to kill her and her family members if she tried to leave. In February 2017, Olivia took photos of Bittinger's bruises to document the injuries in case Bittinger went to the police.

Olivia and Bittinger's sister, Mary Amber Eaton, both testified that Bittinger had worn sunglasses even when it was dark outside to cover her bruises. Dennis also observed that Bittinger had bruises on at least two occasions after Jones and Bittinger moved out of his house. In one case, he said, the bruises were shaped like fingers around Bittinger's arm. Olivia testified that the abuse seemed to increase as it got closer to the date of Bittinger's death, that Bittinger went through 15 phones during the course of the relationship because Jones frequently threw her phones against the wall, and that Bittinger told Olivia she was planning to buy a firearm because she was afraid of Jones.

According to Tiffaney Mullinix, who worked at a restaurant with Dennis's girlfriend, Bittinger often come into the restaurant with visible bruises. In June 2017, Bittinger told Mullinix that she knew she needed to leave Jones but that he had told her that he would kill her if she did. On June 19, 2017, Bittinger sent a text message to a person identified in Bittinger's phone as "My Lifeline." Invoking Jones's nickname, "Pancho," the text message said in relevant part, "I'm stuck with the accusing angry hitting cursing p[a]ncho."

According to Dennis, about a month before she died, Bittinger learned that she would inherit a sum of money, due to her grandfather's death. Dennis testified that Bittinger's plan was to use the money to relocate back to Florida. When asked on cross-examination, however, Sergeant Landrum testified that he did not observe suitcases or moving boxes in Bittinger's bedroom.

Jones took the stand in his own defense. According to Jones, in January 2017, he and Bittinger got into an altercation in Kristin's basement, which was prompted by the discovery that they had each been texting members of the opposite sex. Jones said that, after throwing each other's phones, Bittinger slapped him, and he "slapped her back," and they "started to physically fight." Jones said that, as a result of the fight, Bittinger "had a little bruising and [he] had bruising[,] but [he] was able to cover it up where [Kristin] was not able to see it." According to Jones, after the fight, Bittinger's family no longer liked him, and he and Bittinger split up.

Jones testified that, in March 2017, he and Bittinger got back together. After saving some money, they moved into the apartment where Bittinger later...