Townsend v. State

312 Ga. 276

862 S.E.2d 304

TOWNSEND

v.The STATE.

S21A0997

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: August 10, 2021

Joshua Joseph Smith, P.O. Box 458, Dalton, Georgia 30721, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, William C. Enfinger, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Herbert McIntosh Poston, Jr., District Attorney, Conasauga Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, P. O. Box 1086, Dalton, Georgia 30722-1086, for Appellee.

Nahmias, Chief Justice.

Appellant Brandon Townsend was convicted of two counts of malice murder in connection with the deaths of Krystal Spainhour and Judy Potts. He appeals, arguing only that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by not requesting a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense. Because Appellant has not shown that his trial counsel performed deficiently, we affirm.¹

1. The evidence presented at Appellant's trial showed the following. Appellant lived in Dalton with his friend and former co-worker Spainhour and her mother Potts on and off for several years. At 4:45 p.m. on January 8, 2019, Spainhour called 911. She told the operator that Appellant had been drinking and arguing with her and her mother. Potts then took the phone from Spainhour and said that Appellant had approached the two women "hollering and screaming." Potts also said, "I have hit him in his face, and if he keeps it up, I might do it again." A loud argument between Appellant, Potts, and Spainhour can be heard in the background throughout the audio-recorded call.

When a Whitfield County Sheriff's deputy responded to the 911 call, Potts told him that Appellant had screamed in her face and "backed her down" until she tripped over a chair, after which she slapped him. Appellant told the deputy that he was sitting in the living room when he heard Potts yelling at him through a door, and upon opening the door, Potts slapped him two or three times and then he "backed her down" and she tripped over the chair. The deputy ultimately told Appellant to leave the house until things calmed down.

The next day, Spainhour went to care for an elderly family member. When Spainhour's stepbrother drove her home at about 7:45 p.m., he saw Appellant inside the house. Around 3:00 a.m. the next morning, Appellant called the sheriff's office and said, "I need to turn myself in." A 911 operator called him back to gather more information, at which point he said, "I lost my mind earlier and I choked two ladies." Appellant also told the operator that Spainhour had said something to him that "triggered" him.

When law enforcement officers arrived at the house, they found Spainhour lying dead on a couch, covered with a blanket, and Potts lying dead in her bed, also covered with a blanket. Both women had their faces severely beaten, their throats cut, and stab wounds to their abdomens. Appellant, who was described by deputies as "calm and cooperative," was taken into custody.

During two custodial interviews, Appellant gave the following account of what led to Spainhour's and Potts's deaths. On the night of January 8, he had returned to the house, apologized for raising his voice, and was allowed back inside. While Spainhour was away caring for her family member the next day, Appellant drank alcohol, slept five or six hours, and at some point became angry and flipped over a coffee table in the living room. When Spainhour got home, she confronted him about his drinking and the table being overturned. Spainhour told Potts to "call the law," at which point Appellant "snapped" and "lost his temper." He grabbed Spainhour and began choking her on the living room floor. Potts tried to help Spainhour, and Appellant grabbed her and began choking her as well. Appellant choked both women at the same time until they stopped moving. Then he stomped on them, stabbed them, and cut their throats because he was unsure if they were alive and did not want them to "lay [sic] there and suffer."

When Appellant was asked what made him "snap," he responded: "I don't even remember what [Spainhour] said, honestly, but it's not her fault. It's me. I lost it. I've got no excuse." He also said, "There really wasn't no fighting. I choked them out." Appellant also admitted that he moved Spainhour's body to the couch and Potts's body to the bed and changed his clothes before calling the sheriff's office.

Appellant had cuts and scratches on his back, shoulders, neck, head, face, hands, and heel, as well as a knot on the top of his head and rug burns on his knees. Some of the marks appeared to come from fingernail scratches, and Spainhour had "debris" under her fingernails. When Appellant was asked if his injuries were the result of the women defending themselves, he answered, "Probably, yeah." He said the knot on his head came from Potts striking him with a phone while she was fighting back. The cause of death for both victims was later determined to be manual strangulation, with blunt force injuries to the head and torso as significant contributing factors; the knife wounds were inflicted post-mortem.

At trial, the State also offered into evidence several pages of a notebook that Appellant wrote in before and after the killings. Some passages appeared to describe the events of January 8 and 9, including: "I did that s**t. No appeals"; "Y'all slow as f**k retarded bird brains"; "I break y'all’s rules and beat you. Why, because y'all suck"; "Who goes and tattles, a dumbass"; "I wring that neck"; and "I'll wring your god**mn neck."

Appellant did not testify at trial. His defense was that he was insane at the time he killed Spainhour and Potts. Dr. Samuel Perri, a forensic psychologist with the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, evaluated Appellant before trial and was called as an expert witness by the defense at trial. Dr. Perri testified that "given the nature of the offense, ... I think there is a mental issue going on." He also discussed reviewing a diagnostic exam that Appellant had completed in the past that listed prescriptions for the antidepressant drugs Zoloft, Effexor, and Wellbutrin, as well as Seroquel, an antipsychotic drug. Appellant's counsel also pointed to his repeated declarations during the post-killing 911 call and in interviews that he had "lost his mind," and argued that evidence presented about Appellant's long-term use of drugs and alcohol showed an attempt to self-medicate for underlying mental illness.

However, in a video recording of one interview that was played for the jury, Appellant said that he had not used methamphetamine for several months leading up to the killings. And Dr. Perri also testified that during the evaluation, Appellant said that he would know the difference between right and wrong, although at the time of the killings he was "not thinking right and wrong." Dr. Perri also found no evidence of a delusional compulsion that would have "overmastered" Appellant's will to have resisted committing the crimes. The trial court instructed the jury on the potential verdicts of not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, guilty but mentally ill, guilty but with an intellectual disability, and guilty, and those options were provided on the verdict form. The jury found Appellant guilty.

2. Appellant claims that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to request a jury instruction on the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter.² To prevail on this claim, Appellant must show that his counsel's performance was professionally deficient and that he suffered prejudice as a result. See Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). To establish deficient performance, Appellant must show that his lawyer performed his duties in an objectively unreasonable way, considering all of the circumstances and in light of prevailing professional norms. See id. at 687-690, 104 S.Ct. 2052.

"This is no easy showing, as the law recognizes a ‘strong presumption’ that counsel performed reasonably, and Appellant bears the burden of overcoming this presumption. To carry this burden, he must show that no reasonable lawyer would have done what his lawyer did, or would have failed to do what his lawyer did not. In particular, ‘decisions regarding trial tactics and strategy may form the basis for an ineffectiveness claim only if they were so patently unreasonable that no competent attorney would have followed such a course.’ "

Velasco v. State , 306 Ga. 888, 892, 834 S.E.2d 21 (2019) (citation omitted). To prove prejudice, Appellant must demonstrate that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's deficiency, the...