Lopez v. State

898 S.E.2d 441

LOPEZ

v.The STATE.

S23A1165

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: February 20, 2024

Superior Court, Catoosa County, Kristina Cook Graham, Judge Matthew Kyle Winchester, Law Offices of Matthew K. Winchester, Garland Law Building, 3151 Maple Drive NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30305, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Matthew Blackwell Crowder, Assistant Attorney General, Clint Christopher Malcolm, Assistant Attorney General, Meghan Hobbs Hill, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334-1300, Clayton McLean Fuller, District Attorney, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, 7694 Nashville Street, Ringgold, Georgia 30750, David Michael Wolfe, A.D.A., Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, 7694 Nashville Street, Ringgold, Georgia 30736, Elizabeth Over-camp Evans, A.D.A., Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, P. O. Box 1025, LaFayette, Georgia 30728, for Appellee.

Warren, Justice.

Appellant Belinda Lopez ("Belinda") was convicted of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the shooting death of her husband, Noel Lopez ("Noel").¹ In this appeal, Belinda contends that the evidence presented at her trial was legally insufficient to support her convictions and that her trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance. For the reasons explained below, we affirm.

1. The evidence presented at Belinda’s trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, showed the following. On the night of February 29, 2020, Belinda, Noel, and Belinda’s friend Angelica Juarez went to a nightclub in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they drank several beers and shots of liquor. They left the nightclub sometime after 2:00 a.m., and Noel drove them in his pickup truck on Interstate 75 South toward their homes in Dalton, Georgia. Belinda sat in the front passenger seat, and Juarez sat behind her in the rear passenger seat. At 2:55 a.m., Belinda called 911 and reported that Noel had been shot in the head.

Responding investigators found the pickup truck stopped in the middle southbound lane of Interstate 75. Noel was dead; there was a gunshot wound on the right, back side of his head; and his body was "slumped" over the center console. Belinda, who was crying in the passenger seat, had blood on her hands, pants, and feet, but investigators did not see any injuries on her. Juarez was not in the truck. Investigators observed a hole in the driver-side window and blood on the steering wheel, front passenger seat, and back seat. Investigators located a handgun holster on the passenger-side floorboard, and after they moved Noel’s body, they found a 9mm semiautomatic pistol in the center console. The slide of the pistol was not locked, and there was a spent shell casing inside the gun chamber that failed to eject from the gun.²

A detective interviewed Belinda around 5:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. that day; she was interviewed again on March 2 and May 29. The interviews were video-recorded, and at trial, the recordings were admitted into evidence and played for the jury. During the first interview, Belinda told the following story. Noel was "very jealous," "abusive," and "aggressive." As he drove Belinda and Juarez, who was "drunk," home from the night- club, he and Belinda began to argue about her socializing with friends there. Noel grabbed the pistol from the center console and waved it in her face, saying "I’m going to kill you." While the truck was still in motion, Belinda pushed the pistol away, it discharged, and Noel slumped over the console. She then got out of the truck, grabbed her cell phone, and called 911. She discovered that Juarez had left the truck, and she did not know what happened to the pistol. When the detective and an investigator interviewed Belinda again around 12:00 p.m., she told a somewhat different story. As she and Noel were arguing, she hit him with her hands, and he was "coming at her." She then heard a gunshot and Noel slumped over, but she did not remember him grabbing the pistol or her touching the pistol.

The detective and the investigator interviewed Belinda a third time on the next day, March 2, and she changed her story again. She said that Noel hit her in the chest and forehead while he was driving, and she was hitting him and "trying to defend [her]self with [her] hands."³ He stopped the truck as they continued to fight, and she then heard a "bang." She did not see Noel grab the pistol, but she was "sure" that she did not shoot Noel because she never saw or touched the pistol. She then suggested that Noel likely grabbed the pistol from the center console at some point, and that when "they were struggling or whatever, maybe the gun dropped and shot."

When the detective interviewed Belinda again on May 29, she reiterated that she did not touch the gun and that she "believe[d] that the gun fell out of [Noel’s] hand and that’s how he accidentally got shot." Belinda also told the detective that she often scratched Noel during their fights and that Noel would choke her and leave bruises on her. At the end of the interview, the detective arrested Belinda for the charged crimes. The detective and the investigator testified at trial that they did not observe any injuries on Belinda during any of her interviews.

Juarez testified as follows. During the ride home from the nightclub, she was "very drunk" and was sleeping in the backseat of the truck when she woke up to hear Noel and Belinda fighting. Noel repeatedly hit Belinda and called her a "whore," and Belinda told him to "stop." Belinda hit Noel on the side of the head, Juarez heard a "deafening sound," and she saw blood come from Noel’s head as he slumped over. Juarez asked, "[W]hat did you do, Belinda, what happened"? Juarez then got out of the truck and fled because she was an undocumented immigrant. When the prosecutor asked if Juarez was involved in the shooting, she denied any involvement.

The medical examiner who performed Noel’s autopsy concluded that the gun was fired between six inches and three feet from Noel’s head and that the manner of his death was homicide. The examiner testified that "given the range of fire as well as the location[,] it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, for [Noel] to have had this gun in his hand when this gun went off." The examiner also identified "fresh" abrasions on Noel’s face and body, which were consistent with scratches, as well as a laceration on his face that the examiner testified was likely caused by his being struck with a small, blunt object, such as a gun.

A firearms expert examined the pistol and testified that it functioned properly and that she was unable to cause an accidental discharge by dropping or jarring it. The expert also testified that this type of pistol has three safety mechanisms: a trigger safety that prevents the pistol from discharging unless the trigger is pressed; a firing-pin safety that blocks the firing pin from moving unless the trigger is pulled; and a drop safety that prevents the pistol from discharging if dropped. The expert further testified that having a "weak hold" on the pistol or holding the top of the pistol when it is fired may cause a shell casing not to eject but would not cause the firearm to discharge.

A gunshot primer residue ("GSR") test showed that Belinda had more than five particles of GSR on her hands, which according to an expert witness in microanalysis, indicated that Belinda discharged a gun, was in close proximity to a gun when it was discharged, or came in contact with an item that contained GSR. Juarez had one particle of GSR on her hands.

Belinda did not testify at trial. Opening statements and closing arguments were not transcribed, but it appears from trial counsel’s cross-examination of witnesses and his testimony at the motion for new trial hearing that Belinda’s primary defense was that she was defending herself from Noel’s attack when the pistol accidentally discharged. The jury was instructed on self-defense and accident.

[1] 2. Belinda contends that the evidence presented at her trial was insufficient—as a matter of constitutional due process and under OCGA § 24-14-6—to support her convictions for malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Specifically, Belinda asserts that the State failed to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt her theories of self-defense and accident and alternatively, that the evidence indicated that Juarez shot Noel. This claim fails.

[2] In evaluating a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of constitutional due process, we view the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which she was convicted. See Jones r. State, 314 Ga. 400, 406, 877 S.E.2d 232 (2022). See also Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). And under OCGA § 24-14-6, "[t]o warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused."

The evidence, when properly viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, showed that Belinda and Juarez were the only people in the truck with Noel when he was shot; Belinda admitted during her interviews with investigators that she and Noel typically fought, she often scratched him, and they fought in the truck just before the shooting; and Noel’s autopsy showed "fresh" scratches on his face and body. Belinda also gave investigators shifting accounts of how the shooting occurred: she initially said that the pistol discharged after Noel waved it in her face and s...