A jury convicted Mario Hodges of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the assault, and misdemeanor involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of felony murder. Hodges appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in sustaining the State’s objection to state-of-mind evidence, in qualifying a witness as an expert, and in giving the State’s requested jury charge on revenge as a motive, and that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to obtain an expert witness to rebut the State’s claim he acted with excessive force. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
1. This court addressed Hodges’ first enumeration of error in Hodges v. State,
2. Hodges asserts that the trial court erred in allowing a crime scene technician to testify as аn expert on blood spatter analysis, arguing that the technician was not qualified to be an expert and that the testimony should have been excluded because the State failed to comply with discovery requirements. We review a triаl court’s decision to allow expert opinion evidence for abuse of discretion. Ashley v. State,
(a) Hodges first contends that the trial court erred in allowing the witness as a blood spatter expert because she was not qualified. Whether a witnеss is sufficiently qualified to render an opinion within her area of expertise is a question of law for the trial court to
Holmes did not object to the witness’s tеstimony on the ground that she was insufficiently qualified, however. After the State asked questions regarding the witness’s training and experience, it proffered her as an expert in crime scene investigations and blood spatter analysis. When the trial cоurt asked if Hodges had any questions regarding the witness’s expertise, he responded that he had no objection to her testifying about her observations from processing the crime scene, “but if she’s going to be giving some sort of opinion, that’s well beyond what’s been provided to us and would be improper.” The court ruled that the witness could “testify [to] what she observes and what it’s consistent with,” and qualified her as an expert “for this purpose.” The next day, after the witness had testified on direct and on cross-examination, Hodges moved for a mistrial, but again, not on the basis that the witness was unqualified, but because the State had not reduced the expert opinions to writing and given it to him.
“It is well settled that grounds which may be considered on appeal are limited to those which were raised at trial, and an objection on a specific ground at trial waives any objection to that evidence on other grounds on appeal.” (Punctuation and footnote omitted.) Seibert v. State,
(b) Hodges alsо argues that, if the technician was properly qualified as an expert, then the State should have given him a written summary of her findings no later than ten days before trial pursuant to OCGA § 17-16-4 (a) (4). Because the State did not do so, he contends, the trial cоurt should have excluded the opinion evidence. The applicable version of OCGA § 17-16-4 (a) (4), effective until January 1, 2013, provides that the State must permit the defendant to inspect and copy any reports “of scientific tests or expеriments, including a summary of the basis for the expert opinion rendered” if the State intends to introduce in evidence the test results. It further provides that “[i]f the report is oral or partially oral, the prosecuting attorney shall reduce all relevant and material oral portions of such report to writing and shall serve opposing counsel with such portions no later than ten days prior to trial.” Id.
If at any time during the course of the proceedings it is brought to the attention of the cоurt that the state has failed to comply with the requirements of this article, the court may order the state to permit the discovery or inspection, interview of the witness, grant a continuance, or, upon a showing of prejudice and bad fаith, prohibit the state from introducing the evidence not disclosed or presenting the witness not disclosed, or may enter such other order as it deems just under the circumstances. . . .
“[T]o obtain the exclusion of evidence for the State’s allegеd discovery violation, [Hodges] must show both prejudice and bad faith.” Clay v. State,
Hodges argues that the Supreme Court’s analysis in Stinski v. State,
3. Hodges argues that the trial court erred in giving the State’s requested charge that self-defense must be motivated by fear and “not in a spirit of revenge,” asserting that the charge was improper because the State introduced no evidence that Hodges’ actions were motivated by revenge.
In its lengthy charge on the affirmative defenses of justification and sеlf-defense, the trial court mentioned revenge three times. The trial court instructed the jury that for the “use of force to be justified under the law, the accused must have really acted upon the influence of these fears [of imminent harm] and nоt in a spirit of revenge,” that a person is not justified in assaulting someone “solely in revenge for
Jury charges must be correct statements of the law and, as a whole, must not mislead a jury of ordinary intelligence. Sims v. State,
4. Hodges cоntends that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call an expert witness to rebut the State’s claim he used excessive force. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show both that counsel’s performance was deficient and that the inadequate performance prejudiced the defense. Harris v. State,
To explain the circumstances surrounding his third shot at the victim, who was running away, Hodges’ trial counsel presented an expert witness at sentencing who testified about the effects of “tunnel vision,” in which once a person begins to act in a threatening situation, he does not stop until the threat has ended. Hodges argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to рresent this expert during the trial.
Trial counsel testified at the motion for new trial hearing that he focused his efforts on establishing that Hodges acted in self-defense by finding witnesses who could testify about the victim’s violent acts. He further testified that he wanted to bring forth evidence which law enforcement officials had failed to consider and show that this evidence was consistent with Hodges’ description of events. He reviewed voluminous evidence, received additional discovery materiаl from the State a couple of weeks before trial, and secured the last witness to testify about matters related to self-defense only days before trial. He did not consider calling an expert to talk about Hodges’ psychological state when he fired his weapon at the victim the third time, but knew that was an issue and planned to question the law enforcement witnesses to establish that even trained officers might not recall every detail about a stressful event like a gun fight. One of the officers testified that Hodges told him he “kind of blacked out” after firing the shotgun the first time, and defense counsel brought out in cross-examination that the officer believed him. Further, trial counsel testified, he intended to show that no evidence established that Hodges knew the victim had been hit with the first shot, which explained the second shot. Counsel did not consider hiring an expert for trial because his plan was not “to try to go that route in the trial itself. Just because of the nature of experts and how they are perceived sometimes, [he] didn’t want the jury to be thinking we were trying to pay somebody to say the right thing.”
Under these circumstances, trial counsel’s decision not to call an expert to discuss Hodges’ psychological state during the incident was “within the realm of trial tactics and strategy and provides no basis for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.” Pippins v. State,
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Because Hodges has not argued that the jury charges at issue are legally incorrect, we do not consider whether cases holding that the absence of revenge is an essential element of justification are still good law. E.g., Thompson v. State,