Torres v. State

314 Ga. 838

878 S.E.2d 453

TORRES

v.The STATE.

S22A0659

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: September 20, 2022

Reconsideration Denied October 25, 2022

Joshua Sabert Lowther, Bingzi Hu, Lowther Walker LLC, 101 Marietta Street NW, Suite 3325, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Kathleen Leona McCanless, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Charles Keith Higgins, District Attorney, Benjamin E. Gephardt, A.D.A., Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, 701 H Street, Box 301, Brunswick, Georgia 31520, for Appellee.

Bethel, Justice.

Luis Jose Torres was found guilty of the felony murder of Dennis Bryant and other offenses at a bench trial held before the Appling County Superior Court. Torres appeals, arguing that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient as a matter of Georgia law to sustain his convictions, that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress statements he made to the police, and that double jeopardy barred his re-trial after he had previously been acquitted by a jury of some offenses arising from the events surrounding Bryant's death.¹ We affirm.

1. (a) Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts,² the evidence presented at Torres's bench trial showed the following. On the evening of December 30, 2018, Torres and his girlfriend, Gabrielle

Labaco, were invited to a party by Rocky Wheeler. Torres and Labaco agreed to go, and Rocky drove them to the party.

At the party, multiple people were playing beer pong. During the course of the game, Rocky lost $500 to Dennis Bryant and was angry about losing the money. Bryant later left the party.

Shortly after, Torres asked Rocky to drive him and Labaco home because Torres did not have his own vehicle. With Rocky driving, Torres, Labaco, Rocky, Rhett Wheeler, Catherine Zipperer, and Daisy Lott all left the party together. As they were driving, they passed a Huddle House and saw Bryant inside.

They then agreed that they would follow Bryant and that Rocky and Rhett would take his money and beat him up. As part of that plan, Torres agreed to be a lookout.

A few minutes later, Bryant left Huddle House and went to the Key West Inn in Appling County. Zipperer drove Rocky's car, and the group followed Bryant to the Key West Inn. Video recordings taken from nearby surveillance cameras show that Zipperer pulled into the parking lot with the headlights off and parked in the middle of the parking lot. Over roughly the next ten minutes, while Bryant was in the lobby of the hotel, Torres, Rocky, and Rhett moved around the parking lot, and Zipperer pulled the car to the end of the parking lot. During that time, Torres covered his face by wrapping a piece of clothing around his head.

After checking in and walking back to his car, Bryant brought his car to the back of the hotel, got out of the car, and got an item from the trunk. Torres and the others followed Bryant in Rocky's car to the back of the hotel. Torres, Rocky, and Rhett got out of the car and followed Bryant on foot. Labaco then got out of the car with her face covered, and Zipperer moved the car closer to where Bryant was standing beside his car.

Rocky and Rhett attacked Bryant and began hitting and kicking him. During the attack, Torres saw Bryant reach for a rifle from the trunk of his car. Torres then approached the fight and tried to grab the rifle out of Bryant's hands. During the struggle, the gun fired multiple times, and three bullets hit Torres. Rocky then stabbed Bryant in the neck three times.

Torres and the others ran back to Rocky's vehicle, got in, and drove away from the Key West Inn. One of the Wheeler brothers brought Bryant's rifle to Rocky's car and later disposed of it.

After Torres and the others left, the police were called to the scene. By the time the officers arrived, Bryant was dead. Although it initially appeared to some of the officers that Bryant had been shot, the medical examiner later determined that Bryant died of multiple stab wounds.

Torres asked the Wheelers to drop him off at a hospital, and they refused. The Wheelers later made Torres and Labaco get out of the car, and the Wheelers and the rest of the group drove away.

Torres and Labaco were later seen on the side of the road by Appling County Sheriff Mark Melton and two deputies. An ambulance arrived on the scene about five minutes after Sheriff Melton and his deputies arrived, and Torres was transported to the hospital. Before Torres was taken to the hospital, Sheriff Melton spoke to both Torres and Labaco and asked Torres, "Do you know what happened, buddy?" Torres told Sheriff Melton that he had been shot while walking by the Key West Inn.³

Later that night, Torres was interviewed by GBI Special Agent Kendra Fitzgerald at the hospital. She gave Torres Miranda warnings.⁴ Torres orally acknowledged the warnings and agreed to speak with her. In the interview, Torres told Special Agent Fitzgerald that Rocky had lost $500 in a game of beer pong. He said that Rocky and Rhett "wanted to get" Bryant and were going to "beat [Bryant] up" and get Rocky's money back and that he had been asked to be a lookout. Torres also said that he tried to take a rifle from Bryant's hands.⁵

The next day, Torres was again interviewed by Special Agent Fitzgerald and GBI Special Agent Seth Hullander at the sheriff's office. Torres was again given Miranda warnings, and he signed a form indicating that he had been informed of his rights and that he waived them before speaking with the agents. In that interview, Torres said that Rocky had lost $500 in a beer pong game and was "pissed." Torres said that they later saw Bryant at the Huddle House and that Rocky said that Bryant "[had] his money" and that he "wanted it back." Torres said that he and the others followed Bryant to the Key West Inn. Torres also stated that he had been behind the Key West Inn and later on the side of the road. Torres explained that he told Rocky that he was not going to "touch or hurt" Bryant, but that Rocky told him that Torres was "supposed to be [his] friend so at least be some kind of lookout." Torres told Rocky, "fine." Torres explained that Rocky told him to put on a mask "because ... there were cameras," which he agreed to do because he was scared.

Torres further explained that, during the altercation with Bryant, he saw that a rifle was pointed at the car where Labaco was waiting and that he went to Bryant and tried to pull the rifle from his hands "so nobody got shot." Torres said that Rocky and Rhett were "whipping [Bryant's] ass," and after the altercation, Rocky got back in the car and told Torres, "I think I killed him." Torres told the police that he knew Rocky had a knife with him, based on a conversation with him earlier that evening before the party.

At trial, Torres testified that he reluctantly agreed to be a lookout when the Wheelers confronted Bryant. He further testified that he tried to stop the confrontation when he saw a gun pointed back toward the car where Labaco was waiting and that he tried to get between Bryant and the Wheelers, push the Wheelers away from Bryant, and grab the gun from Bryant. He testified that when he spoke with the sheriff and was questioned by the GBI agents, he tried to explain that he had stopped the fight but that it was hard to get his "mind right" because he was "still in shock" and had taken pain medication, including morphine and Percocet.

(b) Torres argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient under OCGA § 24-14-6, which provides that "[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." "However, this doctrine only applies when the State's case against the defendant was wholly circumstantial, and in this case, the State did not rely solely on circumstantial evidence." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hill v. State , 297 Ga. 675, 678 (2) (b), 777 S.E.2d 460 (2015).

Here, Torres's statements to law enforcement about his involvement in planning the crimes and how he served as a lookout provided direct evidence that he helped plan and commit the crimes. See Eggleston v. State , 309 Ga. 888, 891, 848 S.E.2d 853 (2020) ; Hill , 297 Ga. at 678 (2) (b), 777 S.E.2d 460. Moreover, the trial court, as the trier of fact, was authorized to reject Torres's self-serving assertion in his trial testimony that, after the attack on Bryant began, he abandoned his role in the robbery and attempted to wrestle a gun away from Bryant in order to protect everyone involved. See Fitts v. State , 312 Ga. 134, 143 (3) n.9, 859 S.E.2d 79 (2021) (noting that, if disbelieved by the trier of fact, the defendant's testimony denying involvement in the crimes could have served as direct evidence of defendant's guilt as a party to the crimes); Outler v. State , 305 Ga. 701, 703-704 (1) (a), 827 S.E.2d 659 (2019) (holding, under OCGA § 24-14-6, that "[t]he [trier of fact] was authorized to reject [the appellant's] hypothesis").

Thus, Torres's claim that the evidence was insufficient under OCGA § 24-14-6 fails.

2. Torres next argues that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence the three statements he made to Sheriff Melton and Special Agents Fitzgerald and Hullander. We disagree.

As noted above, Torres gave three statements to the police: one on the roadside after the incident at the Key West Inn, one the same night at the hospital, and one the following day at the sheriff's office. Torres filed a motion in limine to suppress each of these statements, arguing that each statement was custodial and not given voluntarily. Torres also argued that the second and third statements he gave were induced by a hope of benefit. Following a Jack...