FRAZIER v. THE STATE.
S20A0226
Supreme Court of Georgia
April 6, 2020
308 Ga. 450
Nahmias, Presiding Justice.
Appellant Michael Antonio Frazier, Jr., was convicted as a party to the crimes of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the shooting death of one of his accomplices, Quenterious Griner. Appellant‘s sole contention is that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his convictions. We affirm.1
Brown then told Lovick that he was planning to rob Harper. Lovick‘s friend Kenisha Riddle testified that she overheard this conversation because Lovick‘s phone had the speaker on. Riddle sent a Facebook message to Harper to let him know about Brown‘s plan. Lovick testified that she then called Harper to tell him not to meet Brown. During the call, Lovick heard Harper say, “I‘m on the same
During the same interview after the shooting, Appellant said that after the phone call, Harper and his group, which had added a man known as “Hakeem,” went to meet Brown at Kaolin Park. Harper had asked the group to accompany him for “safety,” and although Appellant did not have a gun, he knew that Harper and
Appellant‘s cousin Ken Fragher was dropping off a neighbor, Nicholas Johnson, at the park at the time of the shooting. Fragher testified that when Appellant and Harper arrived at the park, they walked up to his car and talked to him and Johnson; Harper appeared to be armed. Griner and Seals also walked into the park from the woodline. Johnson told Appellant and Harper that he saw some men peeking out of the restroom, and then Harper said something to Griner and Seals, who began walking toward the
As Griner ran away from the restroom, he was shot once in the back by a .40-caliber bullet; he died at the scene. At some point during the gunfire, Seals was shot in the arm or shoulder. Investigators later found four .40-caliber shell casings in and around the restroom, one .380-caliber shell casing outside the restroom, and two 9-millimeter shell casings in the parking lot. They also found .22-caliber ammunition, a .22-caliber ammunition box, and a rod from a revolver in the parking lot. The .40-caliber bullet that killed Griner was matched to a gun that Brown gave investigators during an interview.
As Appellant ran away from the park with Harper and Hakeem, they encountered Lieutenant Wanda Peacock, a Sandersville police officer who was responding to a call of shots fired at the park. When Lieutenant Peacock first saw Appellant, he was wearing a backpack. Although Harper kept running, Hakeem stopped to talk to Lieutenant Peacock, while Appellant ran into a
After the shooting, a group of people including Appellant and Harper gathered at Seals‘s house. Ricardo Burnett, a friend of Seals and Harper, testified that he heard Appellant say, “[Harper] and [Seals] and them was going out there to rob somebody and the guys who was at the park that supposed to have been robbing them about a drug deal....” Appellant also said that Brown‘s group “wanted some weed or something, and they were gone rob them for money or something” and that “[Seals] walked up and kicked the door and the guys started shooting, and that‘s when they took off running.”
Appellant did not testify at trial, but the jury heard evidence of Appellant‘s statements to investigators after the shooting. GBI Special Agent Thomas Bell interviewed Appellant twice on the day of the shooting in a non-custodial setting. Agent Bell testified that
2. Appellant‘s only claim on appeal is that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support his convictions. We disagree.
(a) The legal principles applicable to our review of Appellant‘s claim are well established.
When we consider the sufficiency of the evidence [as a matter of federal due process], our review is limited to whether the trial evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, is sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979); Mims v. State, 304 Ga. 851, 853 (1) (a) (823 SE2d 325) (2019). “Under this review, we must put aside any questions about conflicting evidence, the credibility of witnesses, or the weight of the evidence, leaving the resolution of such things to the discretion of the trier of fact.” Mims, 304 Ga. at 853 (1) (a) (citation and punctuation omitted).
Clark v. State, 307 Ga. 537, 539 (837 SE2d 265) (2019). In addition, as a matter of Georgia statutory law, “[t]o warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.”
To convict Appellant of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, the State was not required to prove that he personally fired the shot that killed Griner, only that Appellant was a party to the crimes, meaning that he
Moreover, Appellant could be found guilty of felony murder even if he did not intentionally aid or encourage the shooting of Griner, as long as Appellant was a party to the underlying felony that was a proximate cause of his accomplice‘s death. See
“Proximate causation imposes liability for the reasonably foreseeable results of criminal . . . conduct if there is no sufficient, independent, and unforeseen intervening cause.” Jackson, 287 Ga. at 654. See also Robinson v. State, 298 Ga. 455, 457-459 (782 SE2d 657) (2016) (holding that the fatal shooting of the defendant‘s accomplice by the victim during an attempted armed robbery was foreseeable); Jackson, 287 Ga. at 652 (explaining that the defendants “planned an armed robbery of someone they believed to be a drug dealer, who also turned out to be armed, an occurrence not unusual among drug dealers“).
(b) Applying these legal principles, the evidence presented at Appellant‘s trial supported the jury‘s rational finding, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Appellant was not just an innocent bystander but rather a party both to the attempted armed robbery that foreseeably led to the shootout in which his accomplice Griner was killed, and to the possession of a firearm by an accomplice during the commission of that felony. To begin with, Appellant admitted that he was with Harper, Griner, and Seals before the shooting, and
Appellant also admitted that he accompanied his accomplices, at least two of whom were armed with guns, to the park to confront Brown, knowing that Harper‘s group and Brown planned to rob each other in the course of a purported drug deal and that Harper wanted his associates there for “safety.” At the park, Harper and his associates spread out, with Appellant and Harper “posted” at the woodline before they approached Brown in the parking lot. Appellant‘s accomplice Seals made the first aggressive move by kicking open the restroom door where Johnson saw men peeking out. And in response to the gunfire from Brown‘s associates, Harper, with whom Appellant was standing, shot at Brown.
Two of Appellant‘s accomplices were shot – Griner fatally – while Appellant fled the scene with his other two associates and evaded a responding police officer for a few minutes by running into
Viewed as a whole, this evidence was sufficient to support Appellant‘s convictions as a matter of due process and under
Judgment affirmed. Melton, C. J., and Blackwell, Boggs, Peterson, Warren, Bethel, and Ellington, JJ., concur.
DECIDED APRIL 6, 2020.
Murder. Washington Superior Court. Before Judge Reeves.
Randall P. Sharp, for appellant.
S. Hayward Altman, District Attorney, Kelly J. Weathers, Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Katherine D. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.