Golden v. State, 310 Ga. 538

Background

On June 28, 2016, Donell Hawkins was shot and killed during an attempted robbery at a Budget Inn. Malik Golden, Kendra Tillery, and Willie Walters were involved in the events leading up to the shooting; Quantisha Parks acted as a decoy.
The plan: Tillery texted Hawkins to lure him; Parks approached his motel room while others listened on her phone; Golden and Walters then went to the room; a single gunshot killed Hawkins outside the room.
Surveillance footage showed two men running from the scene; a witness identified Golden as one of them carrying a book bag. Parks and Walters gave differing but overlapping accounts implicating Golden with a gun and mask; Walters testified Golden shot Hawkins; Golden’s recorded interview claimed Walters fired the shot.
Golden was arrested in Connecticut, gave a four‑hour videotaped custodial interview, and later was tried in Houston County. A jury acquitted him of malice murder but convicted him of felony murder (aggravated assault by firearm); he received life with parole.
On appeal Golden challenged (1) sufficiency of the evidence, (2) admissibility/voluntariness of his custodial statement, (3) admission of Parks’s testimony about Tillery’s texts (hearsay/co‑conspirator exception), and (4) the denial of a mistrial after a co‑defendant alluded to a prior robbery by Golden.

Issues

Issue	Golden's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of the evidence for felony murder	Evidence insufficient under Jackson v. Virginia; conviction relied on improperly admitted evidence	Viewed in light most favorable to verdict, eyewitness, accomplice testimony, surveillance, flight, and Golden’s admission support conviction	Affirmed: evidence sufficient to support felony murder conviction
Voluntariness / suppression of custodial statement	Statement involuntary: ~4‑hour interview, no breaks, ambivalent about counsel (public defender) — should be suppressed	Video shows food/water provided, handcuffs removed early, cordial interrogation; Golden’s request about public defender was not an unambiguous invocation of right to counsel	Affirmed: statement voluntary and not an invoked request for counsel; admissible
Admission of Parks’s testimony about Tillery’s texts (hearsay)	Parks’s recounting of Tillery’s texts was hearsay and inadmissible	Statements fall within co‑conspirator exception and were in furtherance of the robbery plan; some statements offered non‑hearsay to explain conduct	Affirmed: trial court did not err admitting the testimony under coconspirator exception and as non‑hearsay explanatory evidence
Mistrial after Walters’s allusion to prior robbery by Golden	Reference to prior bad act prejudicial; curative instruction inadequate — mistrial required	Statement was vague/nonresponsive; court struck it and gave curative instructions; denial of mistrial within trial court’s discretion	Affirmed: no abuse of discretion; curative instruction sufficient

Key Cases Cited

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (establishes federal due‑process sufficiency standard)
Hayes v. State, 292 Ga. 506 (deference to jury credibility findings under Jackson review)
Virger v. State, 305 Ga. 281 (consider all trial evidence for sufficiency, even if some evidence later challenged)
Perez v. State, 309 Ga. 687 (standard for voluntariness—totality of circumstances; deference to trial court’s factual findings)
Price v. State, 305 Ga. 608 (voluntariness upheld despite multi‑hour interrogation)
Dozier v. State, 306 Ga. 29 (a suspect must clearly invoke counsel; ambiguous references do not automatically invoke right)
Kemp v. State, 303 Ga. 385 (elements for admitting coconspirator statements under hearsay exception)
Dublin v. State, 302 Ga. 60 (trial court’s denial of mistrial reviewed for manifest abuse of discretion; curative instruction can suffice)
Kirby v. State, 304 Ga. 472 (equivocal references to counsel need not be clarified by officers)
Norman v. State, 298 Ga. 344 (corroboration standard for confessions and how jury may weigh corroborated statements)