Montanez v. State

311 Ga. 843

860 S.E.2d 551

MONTANEZ

v.The STATE.

S21A0246

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: June 21, 2021

Steven Eric Phillips, Office of the Public Defender, 100 Peachtree Street, Suite 1600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellant.

Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey H. Rudder, Kevin C. Armstrong, Assistant District Attorneys; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, for Appellee.

Bethel, Justice.

A Fulton County jury found Martin Montanez guilty of the murders of Byron Caceres and Eulalio Mederos-Vega and several theft, firearm-possession, and drug-related offenses arising from the incident in which they were killed. On appeal, Montanez argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient as a matter of due process to sustain his conviction as to one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon under OCGA § 16-11-133 (b) ; that the evidence was insufficient to sustain any of his convictions because the testimony of his alleged accomplice was not corroborated, as required by Georgia law; and that his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance. We affirm.¹

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. In the early afternoon of September 14, 2014, Caceres drove to Diego Molina's apartment so that the two could smoke marijuana and go to the mall. Molina knew that Caceres was in the business of selling methamphetamine, and after picking up Molina, Caceres received a call instructing him to come to an apartment in Chamblee. After driving to the apartment and going inside, Caceres returned to his car carrying a "heavy" black bag with two paper towels on top. Molina testified that Caceres did not tell him what was going on but that he "already had an idea." After a phone call in which Caceres received directions from "his boss or something," Caceres and Molina drove to Mederos-Vega's apartment complex in Sandy Springs. They arrived around 5:00 p.m., and Caceres went up to Mederos-Vega's apartment with the black bag. Molina stayed in the car.

Mederos-Vega, Montanez, and his girlfriend, Zusi Aguirre, were inside the apartment. Aguirre testified to the following. She drove Montanez to the apartment after Montanez received a phone call instructing him to go there. Montanez was carrying "his" gun at the time. Caceres came into the apartment carrying a black bag. He then removed six plastic containers from the bag, each of which were full of methamphetamine. As Montanez, Mederos-Vega, and Caceres were discussing a deal for the drugs, Montanez handed Aguirre a key and instructed her to go to his car to retrieve money from an envelope under his seat. She was confused by this request because she had the keys to the car, which was unlocked, and she did not think that he had any money in the car.

According to Aguirre, before walking into the apartment, Montanez instructed her to ask the men they were to meet whether the methamphetamine "was 36." Aguirre testified that she did not understand what Montanez was asking her to do, that she never really became part of the conversation inside the apartment between Montanez, Mederos-Vega, and Caceres, and that she never asked any questions about the methamphetamine.

Aguirre went to the car and searched for the money Montanez described, but found nothing. She then saw Montanez walking toward her carrying the bag that Caceres had brought into the apartment. The bag had paper towels sticking out of the top. Montanez seemed "hurried," and he instructed her to get in the car and drive away. She then drove Montanez away from the apartment, drove onto Interstate 285, and then began driving north, eventually stopping near Helen. During their drive, she heard Montanez tell someone over a phone call that "it's done." Montanez then broke one of his cell phones and threw it out of the car window.²

After Caceres had been inside the apartment for about an hour, Molina became concerned because he knew Caceres was "working." He then heard something that sounded like gunshots or fireworks coming from the apartment building. Molina answered several calls placed to Caceres's phone, which Caceres had left in the car with Molina. The caller was Caceres's business associate, and he told Molina that he should leave.³ Molina then drove away in Caceres's car and went to the apartments where Caceres's brother and girlfriend lived. Molina appeared to be nervous and scared, and he told Caceres's brother and girlfriend that Caceres had gone into Mederos-Vega's apartment but never came out.

Around 6:30 p.m., the police responded to a 911 call from Mederos-Vega's wife reporting a shooting at their apartment. When the police arrived, they found Mederos-Vega and Caceres lying on the floor, having both suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Both were dead. The medical examiner later concluded that Mederos-Vega and Caceres both died from the gunshot wounds and that the manner of their deaths was homicide.⁴

Aguirre testified that she and Montanez stayed in Helen only a short time and that she drove them back to her home in Mableton that night. When they arrived, both Aguirre and Montanez unpacked the methamphetamine from the bag. Montanez put most of it into a suitcase but gave some to Aguirre. The two then had an argument, and Aguirre demanded that Montanez leave. He did so but later returned to their home and asked Aguirre to drive him across the Veterans Memorial Bridge, which spans the Chattahoochee River. As they drove over the bridge, Montanez asked Aguirre to stop the car. Montanez then disassembled his silver 9mm handgun and threw the pieces into the river. Montanez later sent a text message to Aguirre warning her not to "f**k with the suitcase."⁵

A few days later, Aguirre spoke with a friend who asked her if she had been involved in a double homicide that had been reported in the local news. Aguirre recognized the apartment shown in the news story and became emotional. She decided to leave the Atlanta area and drive to see her father in Pensacola, Florida.

The next day, the police arrested Aguirre in Alabama after stopping her for speeding and discovering that she had two handguns and methamphetamine in the car. She told the police that she had been speeding because she felt threatened because she knew about "a murder in Atlanta." Aguirre told the police that she and Montanez had been in a romantic relationship and that she regularly saw Montanez carry a silver semiautomatic 9mm handgun. The State introduced photographs taken with Aguirre's phone of Montanez on the day before the shootings showing him holding a silver handgun.⁶

On September 24, based on information from Aguirre, a police dive team found the slide and lower grip of a silver Taurus semiautomatic 9mm handgun in the Chattahoochee River near the Veterans Memorial Bridge. A member of the dive team testified that based on the lack of corrosion and algae on the slide and grip, he estimated that those pieces had been in the water for only a few days. Two weeks later, a second dive team searched the same location and found a lower receiver from a silver Taurus 9mm handgun. It matched the slide recovered in the earlier search. The police recovered eight 9mm shell casings and a number of 9mm bullets and bullet fragments from the crime scene and Caceres's body. The State presented evidence that the shell casings had been fired from the gun recovered from the river and that all of the bullets recovered from the crime scene had been fired from the same firearm, which was consistent with a Taurus 9mm handgun.⁷

In November 2015, the police responded to a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance involving Montanez, who had not yet been apprehended. Montanez fled from the scene but was apprehended based on a tip from the woman who placed the call. When Montanez was found, his hair and beard were longer than they had been in 2014, and he provided an alias to law enforcement. He was driving a vehicle with a Kansas license plate. The State introduced evidence that Montanez had previously been convicted of theft by receiving a stolen firearm, a felony.

(a) Montanez argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient as a matter of constitutional due process to support his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of OCGA § 16-11-133 (b). We disagree.

When evaluating the sufficiency of evidence, this Court views the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and asks whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 319 (III) (B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). To prove a violation of OCGA § 16-11-133 (b), the State must present evidence that the defendant possessed a firearm in the commission of certain felonies after previously having been convicted of one of nine enumerated felonies or "any felony involving the use or possession of a firearm." OCGA § 16-11-133 (b).⁸ Count 21 of the indictment alleged that Montanez was in possession of a firearm, "having been previously convicted of a felony involving the possession or use of a firearm[.]"

At trial, the State introduced its Exhibit 69, which was a copy of a sentencing order showing that Montanez had previously pled guilty to theft by receiving stolen property (a firearm), a felony, in September 2013.⁹ The State therefore presented evidence that Montanez had previously been convicted of a felony involving the use or possession of a firearm. Compare Brooks v. State , 309 Ga. 630, 631-633 (1) (a), 847 S.E.2d 555 (2020) (holding that evidence was insufficient where evidence of the prior offense did not suggest that the offense had been committed with the use or possession of a firearm and the offense could be committed without the use or possession of a firearm). The State also presented evidence that...