Lester v. State

310 Ga. 81

849 S.E.2d 425

LESTER

v.The STATE.

S20A0827

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: October 5, 2020

Harold Burton Baker, Tift Judicial Circuit Public Defender, 1212 Chestnut Avenue, Tifton, Georgia 31794, Attorneys for the Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1300, Clifford Paul Bowden, District Attorney, Robert Alan Rogers, A.D.A., Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, 225 Tift Avenue, Tifton, Georgia 31794, Jennifer Dawn Hart, A.D.A., Patrick Warren, A.D.A., Tift Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, P.O. Box 1252, Tifton, Georgia 31793, Attorneys for the Appellee.

Warren, Justice.

Layton K. Lester was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Lorrine Bozeman.¹

On appeal, Lester contends that the trial court erred in admitting statements he made to law enforcement after Bozeman's death and in denying his "motion for mistrial"² arising from the presence of an alternate juror during jury deliberations. Seeing no reversible error, we affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts, the evidence presented at Lester's trial showed that Bozeman, who lived in a house with her mother and who was Lester's great aunt, received a large amount of cash that she was planning to use to buy a piece of property. On the evening of April 29, 2007, Lester was at co-indictee Shurrod K. Rich's house. Rich's brother was present and heard Lester suggest to Rich that they "go rob" Bozeman, telling Rich that they could get $5,000 from the robbery.

Shortly afterwards, Rich and Lester left Rich's house.

Between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. on the same evening, Bozeman's front door was kicked in and she was shot twice. Bozeman's sister, Vernel Clay, who lived several houses away, heard the gunshots and saw two people running through her backyard afterwards. Clay's son also saw the same two people running up the street with two shotguns that belonged to Bozeman's mother. Clay and her son ran to Bozeman's house and found her lying on the floor without a pulse. A paramedic arrived and confirmed that Bozeman could not be revived, and the crime scene was processed. Photographs taken at that time and trial testimony from the paramedic and a law enforcement officer revealed that Bozeman's left pants pocket was pulled inside out before they arrived.

When Rich and Lester returned to Rich's house, Rich's brother observed that Lester had changed into black clothes, was breathing hard, was nervous, and later had cash to spend for food. Rich and Lester told Sean Ross, a friend of theirs who lived in the area, that they had robbed and shot Bozeman and that she had screamed. Later the same night, when Lester's mother came to pick him up, Lester took $1,000 cash out of his pocket and asked a friend, Rodney King, to hold it for him. After Lester's mother overheard Lester talking on the phone and noticed that he was acting nervous and scared, she grew concerned and approached law enforcement. As a result, Lester and his mother went to the police station, where two GBI agents and a detective interviewed Lester over the course of several hours, starting at approximately 7:00 that morning.

When Lester arrived at the police station, he was carrying $476 in cash. He told the officers that he was 15 years old, had completed the ninth grade, and was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Lester's mother was present for the beginning of his first interview, and she was present when he waived his rights under Miranda .³ Although the interview lasted for a total of about six hours, Lester was given several breaks, and the officers reviewed Lester's rights each time they resumed interviewing him.

During the portion of the interview when his mother was present, Lester told the officers that King and another person had planned to rob a drug dealer, left Rich's house to commit the robbery, and returned and gave Lester cash to keep him quiet. During the interview, Lester admitted that he knew Bozeman generally kept money in her pocket because of a previous burglary.

Almost an hour and a half into the interview, an officer asked if Lester's mother would leave the room, and she agreed.⁴ Officers continued interviewing Lester, who changed his story several times. At one point, officers brought King into the interview room because King had given a statement that contradicted Lester's. During that time, there was no physical contact between Lester and King, and officers were positioned so that they could prevent any type of threat to Lester. Lester then admitted that King was not involved in Bozeman's robbery and murder. When King left, Lester said that Gerald Rogers and another person approached him about committing a robbery, left Rich's house, returned, and gave Lester $1,600 not to tell the police anything. Officers interviewed Rogers, who gave a statement that contradicted Lester's, and when Rogers was brought into the interview room with Lester, Lester did not want to speak in front of Rogers. When Rogers was taken out of the room, Lester admitted that he and someone other than Rogers had planned Bozeman's robbery.

At Lester's request, he then spoke alone with one of the GBI agents who had previously interviewed him. Lester told the agent that the person he had planned the robbery with was named "Grady," but that his real name was Shurrod Rich. Lester admitted that he and Rich had gone to Bozeman's house on the night of the robbery and that Lester kicked in Bozeman's door, but claimed that Rich shot Bozeman twice. Lester also said that Rich took the money from Bozeman's pocket and indicated that the money had been taken specifically from Bozeman's left pocket.

At some point during the course of his interviews, Lester was arrested for murder. Before trial, Lester moved to suppress all of the statements he made to law enforcement during the interviews summarized above. After a pretrial Jackson-Denno⁵ hearing on the admissibility of those statements, the trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that Lester was "advised of his Miranda rights, understood his Miranda rights, voluntarily waived them[,] and thereafter freely and voluntarily gave these statements" and that the statements were "made without any offer of hope or fear of injury." The trial court also determined that it would "allow the jury to view" video recordings of portions of Lester's interview.

Lester does not contest the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. Nevertheless, consistent with this Court's general practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the record and conclude that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Lester guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted.⁶ See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 318-319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Lester contends that the trial court failed to apply the nine-factor test laid out in Riley v. State , 237 Ga. 124, 128, 226 S.E.2d 922 (1976), to evaluate whether his rights under Miranda were knowingly and voluntarily waived. He also argues that the trial court "failed to apply the proper procedural safeguards for juveniles" at the pre-trial Jackson-Denno hearing when determining that Lester's statements were knowing and voluntary and thus admissible.⁷ Because Lester has failed to show that the trial court did not properly apply the law concerning a juvenile's waiver of his rights or due process voluntariness, his claims fail.

In the specific context of evaluating whether a juvenile defendant's rights were knowingly and voluntarily waived, the inquiry "depends on the totality of the circumstances and the state has a heavy burden in showing that the juvenile did understand and waive his rights." Riley , 237 Ga. at 128, 226 S.E.2d 922. To that end, "age alone is not determinative of whether a person can waive his rights.... Instead, the question of waiver must be analyzed by a consideration of several factors":

(1) age of the accused; (2) education of the accused; (3) knowledge of the accused as to both the substance of the charge and the nature of his rights to consult with an attorney and remain silent; (4) whether the accused is held incommunicado or allowed to consult with relatives, friends or an attorney; (5) whether the accused was interrogated before or after formal charges had been filed; (6) methods used in interrogation; (7) length of interrogations; (8) whether vel non the accused refused to voluntarily give statements on prior occasions; and (9) whether the accused has repudiated an extra judicial statement at a later date.

Id. (citation and punctuation omitted). See also Allen v. State , 283 Ga. 304, 305, 658 S.E.2d 580 (2008).

In addition, in making its pretrial decision about the admissibility of Lester's statements, the trial court was required to "determine whether, based upon the totality of the circumstances, a preponderance of the evidence demonstrate[d] that the statement was made freely and voluntarily." Butler v. State , 292 Ga. 400, 403, 738 S.E.2d 74 (2013) (citation and punctuation omitted). We have also held that when the voluntariness of a statement to law enforcement is at issue, a trial court should make an "actual ruling" on the voluntariness of the statement. Parker v. State , 255 Ga. 167, 168, 336 S.E.2d 242 (1985) (where trial court made no specific ruling on the voluntariness of a confession, case remanded for clarification and further findings as needed). But we generally do not require trial courts to make specific, on-the-record findings about each aspect of the totality of the circumstances they evaluate or to make "explicit factual...