Horace Coleman and Quantez Mallory were tried jointly by a Douglas County jury and convicted of malice murder in connection with the beating death of Bobby Tillman. Coleman and Mallory each filed separate appeals, which we consolidate for purposes of this opinion. Coleman contends that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a mistrial after the prosecution elicited purportedly inadmissible testimony from a jailhouse informant. Mallory argues that the
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial shows the following. Two high-school-age sisters decided to have a small gathering with their mother’s permission. The girls invited approximately 12 friends (including Tillman) to their house in Douglasville, but news of the party spread on social media, and more than 100 people showed up. Coleman and Mallory were among the many individuals who came to the party uninvited. Due to the oversized crowd, the girls’ mother and her boyfriend called the police and told everyone to leave the premises. As people left the house, crowds congregated outside and spilled onto the street. Soon, fights broke out among some of the girls at the party. Emmanuel Boykins (who was later also indicted) tried to break up one of the fights and was hit. He was overheard saying he did not want to retaliate against a female, but instead was going to hit the first man he saw.
Meanwhile, Tillman was passively standing by a car, across the street from the house. Boykins ran up to Tillman and began punching him. Almost immediately, Coleman, Mallory, and Franklin joined in the attack. When Tillman fell to the ground, the attackers kicked him in the chest and stomped on him multiple times. The beating continued even as some of the bystanders attempted to pull the attackers off Tillman. When the attackers stopped, Tillman was shaking and foaming at the mouth. He was unresponsive when the paramedics arrived and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital.
When the police came to the scene, they rounded up the party-goers, boarded them onto a bus, and took them to a police station for questioning. Eyewitnesses identified the attackers by their appearance. Coleman was described as an attacker who had dreadlocks with gold or yellow tips and who wore a green hoodie, a blue hat, and two or more rosary necklaces. Mallory was described as having a “fade” or “box” haircut and wearing a white jacket with red stripes down the sleeves. Both Coleman and Mallory were also identified as the perpetrators via photographic lineups. An autopsy revealed that the ultimate cause of Tillman’s death was laceration of the heart caused by a blunt impact to the chest.
2. Coleman and Mallory do not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to sustain their convictions for malice murder. Nevertheless, as is our customary practice in murder cases, we independently have reviewed the record with an eye toward the legal sufficiency of the evidence. We conclude that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Coleman and Mallory each was guilty of malice murder.
3. Coleman argues on appeal that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for a mistrial after the prosecution elicited purportedly inadmissible hearsay testimony from a jailhouse informant. The record reflects that the prosecutor asked the informant whether he had encountered any trouble in jail as a result of his agreement to testify, upon which the informant responded: “I’ve had people say that [Coleman] wanted them to come beat me up because I got him some time.” The informant also stated that he was involved in a fight where someone said “this is for [Coleman].” The trial court sustained a hearsay objection to this testimony but refused to grant Coleman’s request for a mistrial, opting instead to give a limiting instruction to the jury and rebuke the prosecution.
Assuming that the informant’s testimony was indeed inadmissible, we see no error in the trial court’s refusal to grant a mistrial. “Whether to declare a mistrial is a question committed to the discretion of the trial judge, and the denial of a mistrial is reversible error only if it appears that a mistrial was essential to preserve the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” McKibbins v. State,
Not only did the trial court give curative instructions, but it also rebuked the prosecution in front of the jury, stating: “I’m rebuking the state in your presence, and telling them they are not to go into this. It was inappropriate for the state to ask a question that resulted in that answer being given.” In this light, any harm stemming from the informant’s purportedly inadmissible statements was substantially mitigated, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant a mistrial.
4. Mallory contends that, during jury selection, the trial court erred by rejecting his Batson challenge to the prosecutor’s peremptory strikes of black potential jurors. The resolution of a Batson challenge at the trial court level involves three steps: “(1) the opponent of a peremptory challenge must make a prima facie showing of racial discrimination; (2) the proponent of the strike must then provide a race-neutral explanation for the strike; and (3) the court must decide whether the opponent of the strike has proven the proponent’s discriminatory intent.” Toomer v. State,
Mallory specifically contends that the trial court erred at the third step of Batson because it failed to make an express finding as to whether purposeful discrimination was shown.
Moreover, Mallory raised his lack of access to GCIC records in the context of his Batson challenge, after the prosecution used the GCIC records of one prospective juror to support its reasons for striking that juror. Mallory does not explain how having the GCIC records of prospective jurors would have helped him in jury selection generally, aside from the conclusory assertion that a lack of those records “impeded [him] in the exercise of his strikes,” nor does he explain how having such records would have enabled him to prevail on his Batson challenge. Although Mallory argues that GCIC records often contain inaccuracies, he does not explain how any such inaccuracies undermined his Batson challenge, given that Batson is only about racial discrimination — it does not prevent the prosecution from relying on inaccurate (but race-neutral) information in striking jurors. See Toomer,
In any event, we have previously stated that a defendant is not entitled to “discover directly the information obtained by the State in preparing for its jury selection.” Williams v. State,
6. Both Coleman and Mallory argue that the trial court improperly commented on the evidence by extensively questioning the State’s forensic pathologist, Dr. Jonathan Eisenstat, about Tillman’s death. At trial, after both parties examined Dr. Eisenstat, the trial court asked him a series of questions relating to (1) how the position of the victim (e.g., standing or lying down) affected the force of the impact on the body; (2) whether Tillman was lying down at the time of impact, and whether he was lying sideways or flat on his chest or back; (3) whether the force applied to Tillman consisted of kicking or stomping, or both; and (4) whether the victim’s size affected the severity of the injury. In answering these questions, Dr. Eisenstat testified, essentially, (a) that the force applied to the body will be greater if the individual is lying down or standing up against the wall than if he has
At the time of trial, OCGA § 17-8-57 provided: “It is error for any judge in any criminal case, during its progress or in his charge to the jury, to express or intimate his opinion as to what has or has not been proved or as to the guilt of the accused.”
A review of the transcript of Dr. Eisenstat’s testimony reveals that the trial court did not express or intimate any opinion as to the evidence or the guilt of either defendant. The court’s questions were “entirely objective” and “did not suggest any particular answer to the witness.” See Curry,
Judgments affirmed.
Notes
Batson v. Kentucky,
The crime occurred on November 6, 2010. A Douglas County grand jury indicted Coleman and Mallory (along with co-defendants Emmanuel Boykins and Tracen Franklin) for malice murder (Count 1) and felony murder (Count 2) on November 19, 2010. Coleman and Mallory jointly stood trial from January 14 to January 25, 2013, and a jury found each guilty of malice murder (but did not return a verdict on the felony murder count). (Boykins had earlier pleaded guilty, and Franklin was tried separately and convicted.) The trial court sentenced Coleman and Mallory to life without the possibility of parole. Coleman filed his motion for new trial on February 6, 2013, and his amended motion for new trial on July 13, 2015, and the trial court denied the motion on April 14, 2016. Mallory filed his motion for new trial on February 6, 2013, amended the motion on February 23, 2016, and the trial court denied the motion on April 13, 2016. Mallory and Coleman timely filed their notices of appeal on April 25 and May 3, 2016, respectively. Their cases were docketed in this Court for the term beginning in April 2017.
We further note that Coleman thoroughly cross-examined the informant and brought out his seven prior convictions, including convictions for giving false information to law enforcement officers andfinancial transaction card fraud. The defense further brought out the fact that the informant was currently facing charges for theft by deception andfinancial transaction card fraud. The jury would have had ample reason to discredit the informant’s testimony.
Because we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it refused to grant a mistrial, we do not address the State’s argument that Coleman failed to preserve the issue by not renewing his motion for a mistrial in a timely manner after the court’s curative instructions. We also do not address Coleman’s suggestion that his counsel was ineffective for failure to timely renew the mistrial motion.
Notably, Mallory does not expressly argue on appeal that the State actually struck any jurors based on race; the heart of his argument is that the trial court committed a procedural error by failing to make an express finding on the third step of the Batson inquiry. Our review of the record like wise does not reveal any discriminatory intent on the part of the prosecution. Indeed, as the trial court noted, the State accepted at least three black jurors, and while “the presence of African-American jurors does not dispose of an allegation of race-based peremptory challenges, it is a significant factor tending to prove the paucity of the claim.” United States v. Edouard,
We note that, with respect to the last stricken juror, the trial court did expressly address step three of Batson, stating that the prosecution’s “explanation is race-neutral, and I’m not going to find there was any discriminatory intent.”
We caution that steps two and three of Batson are distinct inquiries, and combining them may lead to impermissible burden-shifting. See Purkett v. Elem,
Of course, “[t]he constitutional guarantee of due process does require the State to turn over evidence in its possession that is material to guilt or punishment and is favorable to the accused.” Bello,
This provision was slightly amended in 2015 to state: “It is error for any judge, during any phase of any criminal case, to express or intimate to the jury the judge’s opinion as to whether a fact at issue has or has not been proved or as to the guilt of the accused.” OCGA § 17-8-57 (a) (1) (2015).
Under the prior version of OCGA § 17-8-57, a trial judge’s violation of the statute required automatic reversal, even if the defendant failed to object. Under the amended version, which was enacted only after Coleman and Mallory’s trial, a failure to object warrants review only for plain error (unless the trial judge expresses an opinion “as to the guilt of the accused,” in which case reversal is still automatic). OCGA § 17-8-57 (b), (c). Because we conclude that the trial court did not err when it questioned Dr. Eisenstat, we do not reach the issue — raised by the parties — of whether the new statutory standard applies in this case. See Pyatt v. State,