James Marlon Carter was tried by a Jeff Davis County jury and convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Chandler Johnson.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence shows that Carter fatally shot Johnson on September 25, 2011. Johnson was 15 years of age, and he was the son of a woman with whom Carter had been involved in a romantic relationship. About a week before Johnson was killed, his mother broke off her relationship with Carter, expressing a desire to devote more time to Johnson. Carter claimed that he took Johnson into the woods on September 25 to let Johnson shoot a rifle. As Carter was holding the rifle, he said, Johnson turned toward him and said something that surprised Carter, which caused Carter to accidentally discharge the rifle, fatally shooting Johnson. Carter then buried Johnson’s body and told no one about what had happened until October 5. At trial, Carter presented a defense of accident, but his claim that Johnson turned toward him before he fired the fatal shot was belied by the medical evidence, which showed that Johnson was shot in the back. In any event, it was for the jury to consider the credibility of Carter’s claim that the shooting was accidental. See Morrison v. State,
2. Carter claims that the trial court erred when it struck two prospective jurors and when it refused to strike a third. Whether to strike a juror for cause is a matter committed to the sound discretion of the trial court, and we will not find error in an exercise of that discretion absent a showing that the discretion was manifestly abused. See Gray v. State,
The trial court struck the first prospective juror on its own motion after the court determined that the prospective juror no longer resided in Jeff Davis County. Under OCGA § 15-12-163 (b) (1), a person who is “not a citizen, resident in the county,” is not qualified to sit as a juror and may be struck for cause. And a trial court does not abuse its discretion when it excuses an unqualified juror on its own motion. See Norris v. State,
The second prospective juror in question had a close relationship with Carter’s son and expressed an inability to render an unbiased verdict, and he was struck upon the motion of the State. This prospective juror testified that his daughter and Carter’s son had dated for at least four years, and he explained that Carter’s son had lived with his family and was like a son to him. He felt that his relationship with Carter’s son would be a “problem” if he sat on the jury, that his mind was “halfway made up” before he heard any evidence, that he had formed an opinion about Carter’s guilt, that he did not think there was “any way . . . that [he] could come to ... an unbiased conclusion,” that he would not be able to make a decision in the case based solely upon the evidence, and that — if he were Carter — he would not want someone who knew what he knew to serve on the jury in any event. The trial court did not err when it struck this prospective juror for cause. See Krause v. State,
Carter sought to exclude the third prospective juror based upon the juror’s relationship with numerous witnesses and the fact that he, at one point during voir dire, said that he thought Carter should be required to prove his innocence. But this prospective juror agreed that anything he had heard about the case in the community was not evidence, said that he had not formed an opinion about the case, assured that he would “try to” make a decision based solely on what was proven in court, and said that he would “have to be fair” to Carter. As to his statement that Carter should have to prove his innocence, the juror clarified that he didn’t “know . . . how this court system works,” and when the trial court explained that the law was that “he’s innocent until proven guilty,” the prospective juror responded that he understood and agreed. “The trial court was particularly well suited to determine if the prospective juror was merely confused about the burden of proof and capable of rehabilitation, on the one hand, or biased against [Carter] in a way that could not be cured, on the other.” Gray,
3. Carter asserts that the trial court erred when it admitted evidence of pretrial statements that he made on October 5 and October 12, 2011. These statements were the subject of a Jackson-Denno hearing,
The next day, police officers drove Carter to Dublin, and he spontaneously told them that Johnson was dead and that they should drive him back to Hazlehurst so he could show them Johnson’s body The officers again read the Miranda warnings to Carter, and he subsequently led them to the shallow grave in which he had buried Johnson. Carter claims that the incriminating statements that he made on October 5, and additional statements that he made on October 12, were improperly induced by the “threat” made by
Former OCGA § 24-3-50, which was effective as of the time of Carter’s trial,
The conversation between Carter and Johnson’s mother was recorded and viewed by the trial court. Her statement about Carter not getting out of jail was a small part of a 26-minute conversation, in which she repeatedly asked Carter to tell her where he took her son after picking him up from their home. Carter does not point to any evidence indicating that he was threatened by the statement that Johnson’s mother made, that he believed she had any power to prevent him from getting out of jail, or that she was acting as an agent of the State when she made that statement. And Carter acknowledges that he did not make any incriminating statements on October 4 after speaking with Johnson’s mother.
There also does not appear to be any connection between the conversation with Johnson’s mother on October 4 and Carter’s incriminating statements on October 5 and 12. Instead, the undisputed evidence is that the police officers who were with Carter on October 5 had not asked him any questions about the case either before, during, or after their drive to Dublin, that he had been waiting in the lobby of a Georgia State Patrol post in Dublin for about ten minutes when he asked one of the officers if he could speak to him outside, and that Carter then told the officer that “you guys have been real good to me, just bring me back to Hazlehurst and I’ll take you to where [Johnson] is.” The police officer then read the Miranda warnings to Carter, and the remaining conversations between the police officers and Carter were recorded and reviewed by the trial court. Similarly, Carter was read the Miranda warnings again on October 12, his interview with investigators on that day was recorded, and the trial court reviewed that recording too. Nothing in those recordings suggests that Carter was concerned about the “threat” made by Johnson’s mother on October 4, he repeatedly acknowledged that he had not been threatened to make a statement, and the trial court did not err when it found that his statements were voluntarily made as required by former OCGA § 24-3-50.
4. Finally, Carter contends that the trial court erred when it allowed Johnson’s mother to testify about text messages that she said she had received from Carter during the time that Johnson’s whereabouts were unknown. According to Johnson’s mother, Carter’s text messages invited her on dates and explained why he was not participating in the search for Johnson. This testimony was properly admitted under the “[a]dmissions by a real party in interest” exception to the hearsay rule under former OCGA § 24-3-34.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Johnson was killed on September 25, 2011. On November 3, 2011, a Jeff Davis County grand jury indicted Carter, charging him with malice murder, two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, cruelty to children in the first degree, concealing the death of another, and the unlawful possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. His trial began on November 26, 2012, and the jury returned its verdict on November 29, finding him guilty on all counts. The trial court sentenced Carter to imprisonment for life without parole for malice murder, a consecutive term of imprisonment for 20 years for cruelty to children, a consecutive term of imprisonment for ten years for concealing the death of another, and a consecutive term of imprisonment for five years for the possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The aggravated assault merged into the malice murder, and the felony murder counts were vacated by operation of law. See Malcolm v. State,
For the same reasons, we reject Carter’s claim that the trial court erred when it failed to direct a verdict of acquittal. See Lewis v. State,
See Jackson v. Denno,
See Miranda v. Arizona,
The provisions of former OCGA § 24-3-50 were carried forward into the new Evidence Code, and they now are codified at OCGA § 24-8-824.
Although the statute uses the term “confession,” “[i]t has long been the law in this State that the rule as to the admissibility of an incriminatory statement is the same as that applied toa [full] confession.” Vergara v. State,
We note that admissions of a party opponent are admissible under the new Evidence Code. See OCGA § 24-8-801 (d) (2).
The rules for authentication or identification under the new Evidence Code are found in OCGA § 24-9-901.