BLACKMON v. THE STATE.
S19A0366
Supreme Court of Georgia
June 3, 2019
306 Ga. 90
NAHMIAS, Presiding Justice.
FINAL COPY
1.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at Appellant‘s trial showed the following. On April 28, 2015, Appellant argued with his wife Bobbie about photographs of a sexual nature that were on her cell phone; Appellant believed that she had sent the photos to another man. Appellant took some pills, drank a bottle of cold medicine, cried, and yelled at Bobbie. He then left the mobile home that he shared with Bobbie, their daughter Leigh Ann Hathcock, and her children.
Around 8:00 p.m., Bobbie asked her niece Christina Turner, who lived in a camper just outside the mobile home, to drive her to her mother‘s house because she and Appellant were arguing. Shortly after Bobbie and Turner turned onto the road from their driveway, Appellant passed them in his car. He then turned his car around,
As they drove, Bobbie said that she loved Turner and Turner‘s brother (Bobbie‘s nephew), that Turner should take care of Bobbie‘s daughters, and that Turner and Bobbie‘s daughters needed to “stick together.” Bobbie also said that “this is it for her, that she was not leaving the house tonight.” When they arrived at the mobile home, Appellant, who also had driven back there, began throwing his tools off the front porch, saying that “he didn‘t need no tools no more, he wasn‘t going to be working on nothing no more.” Turner asked Bobbie if she wanted Turner to call the police; Bobbie said no, but told Turner, “stay with me, don‘t leave me.”
Around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., Appellant wrote letters to each of his three daughters. In one of the letters, he wrote, “I can‘t be here,
Later that night, Appellant and Bobbie drove together to pick up Appellant‘s mother, but they turned back when they learned that she had another place to stay. When they returned to the mobile home an hour or two later, they were calm. Bobbie then went to sleep in a chair in the living room. Turner stayed on a couch near Bobbie, who was scared and called out Turner‘s name several times during the night to make sure she was still nearby. Around 3:30 a.m., Appellant kicked Bobbie‘s chair and said, “get your ass up, come
Around 4:00 a.m., Hathcock heard a gunshot and Appellant‘s screams for help. She and Turner went into the bedroom and saw Bobbie sitting slumped over on the bed with a large gunshot wound on the left side of her neck. Turner called 911, and Appellant asked Hathcock if Bobbie was dead. Hathcock noticed that Bobbie was breathing and asked for Appellant‘s help. He, Turner, and Hathcock then drove Bobbie to the end of their long driveway to meet the emergency responders.
A sheriff‘s office sergeant and emergency medical providers responding to the 911 call met them as they turned out of the driveway. Bobbie was taken to a hospital, where she later died from her gunshot wound. Appellant told the sergeant that he had not meant to shoot Bobbie and that “he was trying to shoot himself and
Near the carport outside the mobile home, investigators found a bloody jacket with a bullet hole in the collar and a bloody, black t-shirt. On the bed in Appellant and Bobbie‘s room, they found blood stains and five long guns. A 12-gauge pump-action shotgun was leaning against the bed. In the shotgun, there was one spent shell casing for a large solid bullet known as a “slug.” Investigators found the slug that had passed through Bobbie‘s neck in a window frame in the bedroom. A firearms examiner later determined that the shotgun was functioning properly and required 3 and 3/4 pounds of trigger-pressure to fire. Bobbie‘s autopsy showed that the gun was between a few inches and three feet away when she was shot. The medical examiner also concluded that Bobbie had bleeding in her scalp caused by a blunt impact injury.
At trial, Appellant admitted to shooting Bobbie but claimed it was an accident. He testified as follows. After Bobbie went to sleep in the living room, he woke her, saying that they needed to talk and
Appellant also elicited testimony from the medical examiner that the blunt impact injury to Bobbie‘s head could have been caused by Appellant‘s dropping her. To rebut Appellant‘s accident theory, the State presented a GBI agent‘s expert testimony that based on the trajectory of the slug found in the window frame, the shotgun was in a “fairly level position” and the butt stock of the gun could not have been on the floor when Bobbie was shot.
Appellant does not challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. Nevertheless, in accordance with this Court‘s practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the
2.
Appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting Turner‘s hearsay testimony about certain statements that Bobbie made to her on the evening before the shooting. We disagree.
“Hearsay” is an out-of-court statement that a party offers into evidence “to prove the truth of the matter asserted” in the statement.
The excited utterance exception says that “[a] statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition” shall not be excluded by the hearsay rule.
Here, the evidence indicated that after Appellant argued with Bobbie about her supposed infidelity, took some pills, drank a bottle of cold medicine, and yelled and cried, Bobbie enlisted Turner‘s help to escape to her mother‘s house. But Appellant unexpectedly intercepted them on the road just past their driveway, ordered Turner to take Bobbie home, and threatened to shoot Turner‘s car. During the short drive back to the mobile home, Bobbie said that she loved Turner and Turner‘s brother; that Turner should take care of Bobbie‘s daughters; that Turner and Bobbie‘s daughters needed to “stick together“; and that “this is it for her, that she was not leaving the house tonight.”
From this evidence the trial court could reasonably find that Appellant‘s aggressive response to Bobbie‘s attempted escape, including his threat to shoot at the car she was in, qualified as a startling event. See, e.g., Ledford, 443 F3d at 710 (concluding that a domestic altercation between the appellant and his girlfriend, which
Appellant also argues that statements Bobbie made shortly
Appellant nevertheless asserts that none of Bobbie‘s
Bobbie‘s statements to Turner indicated that she was afraid of Appellant and upset by her husband‘s chaotic and threatening behavior. Turner testified that Bobbie was scared even when she
3.
Appellant also contends that in its order denying his motion for new trial, the trial court erred by relying on facts that were not in evidence. In its order, the court concluded that the statements discussed in Division 2 above were correctly admitted under the excited utterance exception and found that Bobbie was under the effects of stress and excitement because she made the statements “within moments of an angry confrontation in the roadway in which [Appellant], among other things, threatened to shoot [Turner‘s] car.” Appellant now claims that Turner did not testify that he made that threat on the roadway or that Bobbie heard the threat.
Turner clearly testified on direct examination, however, that when Appellant intercepted her and Bobbie on the roadway, he said that “[i]f [Turner] didn‘t turn the car back around, that he would
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Decided June 3, 2019.
Murder. McDuffie Superior Court. Before Judge Hammond.
Caryn Lobdell, for appellant.
William P. Doupé, District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Matthew D. O‘Brien, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.