A jury сonvicted Amin Dennis of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Jerry Lee Lawrence and Harold Reese, Jr.
1. Thе State presented evidence at trial that Dennis and his brother and co-defendant, Corey Dennis, had been watching Reese’s house for weeks. In the early morning hours of August 26, 2009, they followed Reese and Lawrence to the 1800 block of Blackshear Road in Crisp County, Georgia, and parked behind Reese’s brown Ford Explorer on the side of the road. The brothers ambushed the two men, pulled them from the vehicle, bound them with black electrical ties, and placed duct tape over their mouths and eyes. They put Reese in the back seat of his vehicle whilе Lawrence lay on the ground. When Dennis asked Reese what his life was worth, Reese offered to pay $3,000, which he said was all the cash he had. Dennis searched the Explorer for money, but found none in it. Lawrence was shot first. Reese then escaped from the car and began to run away, but fell as the brothers chased him. Reese got back to his feet, charged for the gun, was shot in the chest, and fell to the ground, where he was shot again. Dennis and his brother wiped down Reese’s Explorer with a cleaning solution, placed Lawrence in the back seat, let the vehicle roll into the cotton field, and set it on fire. As they were driving back to Dennis’s house, he threw his revolver into the woods. They started a fire in his yard and spent a couple of hours burning сell phones, a wallet, their socks and shoes, a roll of duct tape, electrical ties, a towel, and a bottle of carpet cleanser. The brothers’ first cousin saw Dennis рouring lighter fluid on a fire in front of his house around 3:00 a.m. that day.
Within a few hours, police found the burnt, smoldering Explorer in a cotton field with the charred body of a dead man, subsequently identified by DNA evidenсe as Lawrence, in the back seat. That evening Dennis told another cousin that he and his brother had committed the killings, the body in the burnt vehicle was not Reese’s, and it “would be a while” beforе police found Reese. The following day police recovered Reese’s body 100 to 150 yards from the road on the back side of the same cotton field where they found his vehicle. Reese was barefoot and had duct tape around his neck and over his chin, broken black electrical ties on his left wrist and ankle, and bullet wounds to his head and back. In a subsequent search of Dennis’s residence, police found the fire pit in the yard and recovered a set of keys that matched the doors of Reese’s residence, a padlock оn a shed in Reese’s yard, a 1988 Chevrolet Blazer in the shed, and a door to his father’s residence next door and black electrical ties that were consistent in size and color with the оnes found at the side of the road and on Reese. In addition, police found a second burn pile at the home of the brothers’ mother that contained their clothing, Lawrence’s
Dennis challenges the sufficiency of the evidence regarding the two kidnapping with bodily injury counts, arguing that the State presented no evidence that either victim was movеd, a necessary element of the crime. OCGA § 16-5-40 (a) states that a person commits the offense of kidnapping when he “abducts or steals away another person without lawful authority or warrant and holds such other person against his or her will.” For a kidnapping to occur, slight movement is required, provided the movement is not “merely incidental” to another offense. Id. at (b). Our statute states that the movement shall not be considered merely incidental to another offense if it “[cjonceals or isolates the victim” or makes “the commission of the other оffense substantially easier.” Id. at (b) (2) (A), (B). In his custodial statement, Dennis admitted that he and his brother removed both victims from Reese’s vehicle, bound them with electrical ties and duct tape, and then рlaced Reese in the back seat of his vehicle while Lawrence lay on the ground. Because these actions concealed Reese, isolated the two victims, and made the commission of the armed robbery and murders substantially easier, the movement of the victims was not merely incidental to the other offenses that Dennis committed. After reviewing the evidеnce in the light most favorable to the jury’s determination of guilt, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found Dennis guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, and the other crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia,
2. Dennis also contends that the trial court erred in admitting the videotaped statement that he made to law enforcemеnt officers after his arrest because it was not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily made. Specifically, he alleges that the two officers who interrogated him made statements that could be construed as suggesting a lighter punishment if he confessed.
To be admissible, a confession must have been made voluntarily without being induced by the slightest hope of benefit or remotest fear of injury. Taylor v. State,
At a pretrial hearing held on the motion to suppress under Jackson v. Denno,
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
The crimes occurred on August 26, 2009, and thе Crisp County grand jury indicted Dennis on November 9, 2009. On August 13, 2010, the jury found him guilty of two counts of malice murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of kidnapping with bodily injury, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of armed robbery, one count of arson in the first degree, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and one count of possession of a fireаrm by a convicted felon. Following a hearing, the trial court sentenced Dennis on September 7, 2010 to two sentences of life in prison without parole on the malice murder counts, thrеe sentences of life imprisonment on the kidnapping and armed robbery counts, one 20-year term of imprisonment on the arson count, and three five-year terms of imprisonment on thе firearm possession counts, all sentences to be served consecutively. The remaining felony murder and aggravated assault counts merged or were vacated by operation of law. Dennis filed a motion for new trial on September 21, 2010 and an amended motion for new trial on July 31, 2012, which was denied on September 13, 2012. Dennis filed a notice of appeal on October 10, 2012. The case was docketed for the Court’s April 2013 term and submitted for decision on the briefs.
Corey Dennis pleaded guilty to the felony murders of Reese and Lawrence and related crimes, and we affirmed the trial court’s denial of his motion for out-of-time appeal. See Dennis v. State,