Hood v. State
811 S.E.2d 392
Ga.2018Background
- In Sept. 2013 Appellant Tommy Hood, a convicted felon, sold crack cocaine from a DeKalb County motel room and kept a chrome revolver there.
- Victim Morrell Dorsey and Alkeyna Bilal visited the room twice to buy crack; during the second visit Dorsey swallowed a packet of crack and Appellant confronted the group with a gun.
- Appellant handed his gun to a man known as "Slim," a struggle ensued when Dorsey tried to grab the gun, and Slim fired twice, killing Dorsey; Appellant fled with some property.
- Police recovered drug paraphernalia and the swallowed packet; Appellant admitted selling crack and being present but denied touching the gun; he later told an acquaintance the victim "deserved to die."
- A jury convicted Hood of felony murder (based on possession with intent to distribute), aggravated assault, and related firearm offenses; Hood appealed, raising sufficiency of the evidence, jury-instruction and ineffective-assistance claims, and sentencing/merger issues.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sufficiency of evidence for felony murder (possession with intent to distribute) | Evidence was insufficient because Appellant's possession was interrupted when Dorsey swallowed the crack | Appellant's drug-felony proximately caused the death; drug dealing is foreseeably violent | Affirmed: evidence sufficient; proximate causation found (death during res gestae and foreseeable result) |
| Merger / sentencing error for firearm-based felony murder and felon-in-possession count | State (and Hood) argued merging/labeling errors occurred | Appellant argued verdict merged and vacated; State sought correction | Court: firearm-based felony-murder count was vacated by operation of law; no reversal required; State failed to cross-appeal to force correction of merger for felon-in-possession, so court declines to exercise discretion to correct |
| Jury instructions (plain error) about justification/forcible-felony and aggravated-assault definition | Hood: court should have explicitly instructed that Dorsey's "attack" could be aggravated assault (a forcible felony) and defined "forcible felony" | Trial charge tracked justification, self-defense, defense of habitation, and defined aggravated assault as a felony involving force; jury could intelligently consider defense | No plain error: charge as a whole adequately informed jury; omission not obvious nor outcome-determinative |
| Ineffective assistance for failing to preserve instruction claims | Hood: counsel deficient for not objecting and preserving instructional issues | State: even if deficient, no Strickland prejudice because charge was adequate | Claim fails: no reasonable probability of different outcome; prejudice not shown |
| Failure to instruct on involuntary manslaughter (reckless conduct) | Hood: should have been charged as a lesser included offense based on reckless conduct | Underlying acts were felonies, and involuntary manslaughter via unlawful act requires an act other than a felony | No plain error: lesser-offense instruction unwarranted; counsel not ineffective for not requesting it |
Key Cases Cited
- Jackson v. State, 287 Ga. 646 (explaining proximate-cause standard and res gestae in felony-murder)
- Davis v. State, 290 Ga. 757 (recognizing drug dealing’s foreseeably dangerous nature)
- Brint v. State, 306 Ga. App. 10 (noting firearms as tools of the drug trade)
- Leeks v. State, 296 Ga. 515 (vacatur of certain felony-murder verdicts by operation of law)
- Manner v. State, 302 Ga. 877 (discussing effect of vacated felony-murder counts on sentencing)
- Dixon v. State, 302 Ga. 691 (explaining limits on appellate correction of merger errors absent exceptional circumstances)
- Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency-of-the-evidence review)
- Jones v. State, 220 Ga. 899 (res gestae principle for felony-murder)