BOOTH v. THE STATE
S21A0010
Supreme Court of Georgia
May 3, 2021
ELLINGTON, Justice.
A Jackson County jury found Tina Marie Booth guilty of felony murder and neglect to an elder person in connection with the death of Linda Cowart.1 On appeal, Booth contends that the trial court erred (1) by not declaring a mistrial after the jury returned mutually exclusive verdicts, and (2) by recalling the jury for deliberations after the jury was discharged. For the following reasons, we affirm.
The evidence at trial showed that Booth took custody of her elderly mother, Cowart, after Cowart was discharged from the hospital in October 2016. Booth cared for Cowart in Booth‘s home with the assistance of a registered nurse until early December. Cowart was in Booth‘s unsupervised care from early December until March 15, 2017, when paramedics entered Booth‘s home in response to a report that Cowart was unconscious. Cowart was suffering from pressure-induced ulcers that were so severe that her bones were exposed. The paramedics took Cowart, who was then 74 years old, to the hospital, where she died from complications caused by the ulcers.
A Jackson County grand jury indicted Booth for four crimes in connection with Cowart‘s death: felony murder for causing Cowart‘s death while in the commission of the felony of neglect to an elder person; neglect to an elder person2 by willfully depriving Cowart of healthcare while she was supervising Cowart, a person over 65 years of age; involuntary manslaughter in that she caused Cowart‘s death while in the commission of the unlawful act of reckless conduct; and reckless conduct3 in that she disregarded a substantial risk that her failure to seek medical aid for Cowart‘s ulcers would endanger
The jury‘s initial verdicts were reviewed by the trial judge with counsel and published in open court. The trial court then told the jurors “that concludes your jury service,” that he would shortly have them step back into the jury room, and that he would “come back there briefly and then you‘ll be dismissed, free to go.” The jurors were subsequently polled at the request of defense counsel, after which the judge told the jurors that they were “dismiss[ed] to the jury room,” with the option to come back to the courtroom for sentencing if they wished. The judge added that, “[i]f you don‘t want to stay for sentencing you certainly don‘t have to. But if you‘ll go ahead and retire to the jury room.”
After the jury retired, defense counsel objected that the verdicts were mutually exclusive. The judge called a recess to research the issue, telling counsel he would go to the jury room to let the jurors know that there would be a delay before sentencing and, “If they want to wait, I‘ll let them wait. If they want to go, I‘ll let them go.” Less than an hour later, the court called the jurors, none of whom had left the courthouse, back to the courtroom and told them that they were not released from jury service and that they should return to the jury room after picking up lunch. Booth moved for a mistrial, which the trial court denied.
The trial court subsequently told the jurors that their initial verdicts were mutually exclusive and that he was vacating those verdicts. Over defense counsel‘s objection, the court charged the jury that they could not enter guilty verdicts on both felony murder and involuntary manslaughter and could not enter guilty verdicts on both neglect of an elder person and reckless conduct. The court gave the jury another verdict form and sent the jurors out of the courtroom to deliberate. The jury returned final verdicts finding Booth guilty of felony murder and neglect to an elderly person and not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct.
1. Booth contends the trial court erred in denying her motion for a mistrial because the jury initially returned mutually exclusive verdicts, citing State v. Owens, 296 Ga. 205 (766 SE2d 66) (2014). In that case, we held that the jury‘s verdicts of guilty on the counts of felony murder and involuntary manslaughter were mutually exclusive because the felony murder count required the jury to find criminal intent for the underlying felony while the involuntary manslaughter count gave the jury the option of choosing the underlying predicate of reckless conduct, which requires criminal negligence. See id. at 210-211 (3) (citing Jackson v. State, 276 Ga. 408, 411-412 (577 SE2d 570) (2003)). Since our decision in Owens, however, we have reconsidered and rejected the proposition that a finding of an intentional infliction of injury precludes the element of criminal negligence in reckless conduct and, therefore, have concluded that convictions for both an offense requiring criminal intent and an offense requiring a lesser mens rea, based on the same act against the same victim, are not mutually exclusive. See State v. Springer, 297 Ga. 376, 381 (1) (774 SE2d 106) (2015).
“The term ‘mutually exclusive’ generally applies to two guilty verdicts . . . where it is both legally and logically impossible to convict on both counts[.]” McElrath v. State, 308 Ga. 104, 110 (2) (b) (839 SE2d 573) (2020) (citation, punctuation, and emphasis omitted). As we explained in Springer, “multiple guilty verdicts for the same conduct that are based on varying levels of mens rea are not mutually exclusive.” Springer, 297 Ga. at 381 (1). Where the essential distinction between two crimes is the level of mental culpability, “[s]uch distinction does not mean that findings of guilt as to both offenses are irreconcilable or that if the State proves the greater mens rea, a jury would not be authorized to convict of the lesser included crime based on the finding of the greater.” Id. at 381-382 (1). Booth cannot rely on Owens to show otherwise because Springer necessarily overruled Owens. See Springer, 297 Ga. at 383 (2) (overruling Jackson, 276 Ga. 408, “and its progeny“).
2. Booth also contends that the trial court erred by recalling the jury for deliberations after the jury had been discharged. The premise of this claim of error is that the jury had initially returned mutually exclusive verdicts. In such an instance, the trial court may refuse to accept the verdicts and send the jury back to continue its deliberations. See Dumas v. State, 266 Ga. 797, 800 (2) (471 SE2d 508) (1996). Booth argues that the trial court could not send the jury back to continue its deliberations in this case, however, because the initial verdicts became final under
The jury was not precluded from deliberating a second time by
The trial court properly should have allowed the initial verdicts to stand because they were not actually mutually exclusive, as we explained in Division 1, supra. Booth, however, cannot show she was harmed by the trial court‘s decision to vacate those verdicts and require the jury to deliberate a second time, given that the jury found her guilty of the greater offenses on both occasions and there is no allegation, much less proof, of any improper conduct or influence on the jurors while they were in the jury room in between their deliberations. As neither of Booth‘s claims of error has merit, the judgment of the trial court will stand.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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