Rayton v. State

314 Ga. 29

875 S.E.2d 708

RAYTON

v.The STATE.

S22A0441

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: June 22, 2022

Forrest Geoffrey Pearce, Pearce, LLC, 3500 Parkway Lane, Suite 305, Peachtree Corners, Georgia 30092, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Emily Rebecca Polk, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, Deputy D.A., Juliana Sleeper, A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street, 4th Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellee.

Ellington, Justice.

A Fulton County jury found Joe Rayton guilty of murder in the shooting death of Antonio Ladson.¹ Rayton contends that the trial court erred by refusing his request for a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter. Additionally, Rayton contends that he was denied effective assistance of counsel by his trial counsel's objection to a jury instruction requested by the State regarding accomplice corroboration and by counsel's failure to object to the prosecutor's statement during closing argument that Rayton's own testimony admitting that he shot Ladson during an attempted drug deal precluded a self-defense verdict. For the reasons explained below, we affirm.

Pertinent to Rayton's arguments on appeal, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. Joe Adams, Rayton's son, testified as follows. In early May 2016, Ladson accused Adams of stealing about $100 to $125 worth of drugs from a house where Ladson and his partner, Sacarri Dodson, sold drugs. Ladson repeatedly called Adams and left voice messages and sent text messages threatening to kill his family. In those messages, Ladson said that he knew where Adams, Rayton, Adams's aunt, and his grandmother lived and where Rayton's wife, Wendy, worked. Ladson also told Adams that he had "shot up" Rayton's house. Adams showed the texts to Rayton and to Wendy. On May 19, Ladson encountered Rayton and beat him up. At about 1:00 a.m. on May 20, Adams, Rayton, and Darrius Winfield travelled from Rayton's home in Ellenwood to Elmwood Road in Atlanta, where Rayton intended to buy cocaine as he had done there before. Winfield drove Rayton's car; Rayton sat in the front and directed Winfield where to go; Adams sat behind Rayton. Rayton told Adams he wanted to "stop and go see Corey [Smith]." When they reached Elmwood Road, Rayton told Winfield to stop behind a red car parked on the side of the road that Rayton said was Smith's car. Rayton walked from his car to the driver's window of the red car, taking a jar of marijuana, and called out, "Corey, I got something for you." When Rayton looked in the window, he frowned. Rayton leaned on the car and started talking to Ladson, whom he addressed as "Tony" and who was sitting in the driver's seat. After some conversation, they started to argue. Rayton then opened the jar and showed Ladson the marijuana. Ladson reached down in his car "like he was grabbing something." Rayton jumped back, threw the jar of marijuana into Ladson's car, and pulled a gun out of his pocket. Rayton fired five or six times in Ladson's direction. Rayton started crying, looked to the sky, and said, "I'm sorry. I f***ed up." Winfield, Rayton, and Adams left in Rayton's car. Later that morning, Adams gave the gun Rayton used to shoot Ladson to Wendy and told her to throw it away.

Rayton testified as follows. He read the May 2016 text messages from Ladson to Adams about Adams's supposed debt for stealing drugs from Ladson, messages that Rayton took as threatening to him and his family. In the following days, Rayton encountered Ladson, who told him, "I shot your house up." On May 19, Rayton again encountered Ladson, who handed Rayton a phone, made him dial his mother's number, took the phone when she was on the line, and threatened to kill her or Rayton if he did not get the money Adams owed him. Before these events, Ladson had threatened Rayton with a gun two times. Once, Ladson drove Rayton's car without permission, and, after Rayton threatened to call the police if he did not return it, Ladson pointed a gun at Rayton and said he would kill Rayton if Rayton turned him in to the police. The second time, Rayton witnessed an incident when Ladson claimed a woman had his drugs, shot at her foot, hit her repeatedly with his pistol, and put the pistol in her mouth. Rayton testified that he tried to intervene, and Ladson told Rayton to stay out of his business and pointed his gun at him.

Rayton testified about shooting Ladson as follows. At about 1:00 a.m. on May 20, 2016, he asked Adams and Winfield to go with him to Elmwood Road, where he had been purchasing drugs for several years, so he could purchase cocaine from Ladson's cousin, Corey Smith. On Elmwood Road, they parked behind a red and black car he believed to be Smith's "red and black Monte Carlo Impala." While Winfield and Adams stayed in the car, Rayton walked up to the driver's side of the Impala calling out "Corey" and "Nephew;" he had Wendy's pistol in his pocket and was holding a jar of marijuana that he intended to exchange for cocaine. He also had money in his pocket. The driver of the Impala lowered the window, and, when Rayton saw that it was Ladson and not Smith, his "heart ... dropped," and he froze in fear. Ladson, who was having a conversation on his cell phone, told the other person to hold on and put the phone in his lap. Ladson said to Rayton, "You got my motherf***ing money? Didn't I tell you earlier, if you ain't got my motherf***ing money, I'm going to kill you?" Ladson snatched the jar of marijuana out of Rayton's hand, and repeated his demand for money and his threat. After Rayton told Ladson he had no money, Ladson "reached up under the seat." Because Ladson had just threatened to kill Rayton and had threatened his family in the previous weeks, because he had seen Ladson "do bodily harm to people," and because he knew that Ladson "carr[ied] a gun on him at all times," Rayton was so afraid for his life that he urinated on himself. Rayton reached into his pocket for his pistol, just as Ladson "came up" with "an object in his hand," "something black," and Rayton "blanked" and "just started shooting." In his testimony, Rayton repeated many times that his life was in danger and that he was scared when he started shooting Ladson. After the shooting, Rayton left with Adams and Winfield, and returned to Rayton's house. Rayton decided to spend the night in a hotel, because he was afraid Ladson's cousin and other fellow gang members "were going to come and kill [him]."

Winfield testified that he drove Rayton's car that night; he stopped, as instructed, behind a red car; Rayton got out, holding a jar half full of loose marijuana, exchanged a few words with the man sitting in the red car, reached into the car with the jar of marijuana in what looked to be part of a drug transaction, "and then [Rayton] shot the man." Shandra Atkins testified that, in May 2016, she was occasionally staying at Winfield's home, along with Adams and his sister. Before the shooting, Atkins was aware that Ladson was making threats to Rayton's family "because [Rayton] owed [Ladson] some money for some powder" after Adams robbed the "trap spot" where Ladson sold drugs and where Rayton sometimes bought drugs. Adams told Atkins that Rayton told him that "[Rayton] was going to have to end up killing [Ladson] ... because "[Rayton] was in fear [for] his family and his livelihood [from] the threats that were being made." In the weeks after the shooting, Adams told her what happened to Ladson. Adams said that, on the night of the shooting, Winfield drove Rayton and Adams, and Rayton had a jar of marijuana that he was supposed to give Ladson. According to Adams, Rayton "basically threw the jar to [Ladson] ... to distract him" and "that is when he shot and killed him" using a gun that belonged to Wendy.

Wendy testified that Adams handed her gun to her on the morning of the shooting and told her to get rid of it. She testified that she gave the gun to a friend, who gave it to the lead detective in the Ladson murder investigation. A firearms examiner testified that Wendy's gun, a Taurus .40-caliber pistol, had fired three .40-caliber cartridge cases and two .40-caliber bullets that investigators had collected from in and around the car in which Ladson was shot. The detective testified that other evidence collected from that car, a red Impala, included a glass jar, loose marijuana scattered over the back seat, cocaine packaged for sale, and a quantity of cash. A medical examiner testified that Ladson died from gunshot wounds to the torso.

1. Rayton contends that the trial court erred by refusing his request for a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of murder. His contention fails because the evidence did not warrant such an instruction.

Voluntary manslaughter is the killing of another person under circumstances that would otherwise be murder when the killer

acts solely as the result of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable person; however, if there should have been an interval between the provocation and the killing sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, of which the jury in all cases shall be the judge, the killing shall be attributed to deliberate revenge and be punished as murder.

OCGA § 16-5-2 (a). "A trial court is required to give a requested charge on voluntary manslaughter if there is slight evidence of the elements of OCGA § 16-5-2 (a)." Hatney v. State , 308 Ga. 438, 441 (2), 841 S.E.2d 702 (2020). "A charge on voluntary manslaughter is not available to a defendant whose own statement unequivocally shows" that he used force against the victim "simply in an attempt to defend himself" and when...