Menzies v. StateMenzies v. State
Following a jury trial, Christina Menzies was found guilty of felony murder, criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, and relatеd crimes in connection with the shooting death of Menzies‘s sister Jennifer during an attempted armed robbery.1 On appeal, Menzies contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdicts, that the trial court erred in denying her
I.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed that Menzies devised a scheme to steal hair (intendеd to be used in hair weaves) from Kap Suk Sims; Menzies knew Sims because she had purchased hair from her on several prior occasions. Menzies recruited her sister Jennifer and co-indictee Jaquan Mareek House to join her in the robbery, which she referred to as a “hair weave jug.” House subsequently enlisted his friends, co-indictees Brandon Lamothe and James Edwards, for additional assistance. The group рlanned to sell the hair after the robbery.
On the morning of December 11, 2013, Menzies told Sims by telephone that she wanted to meet her to buy hair, and that Sims should bring as much hair as possible because Menzies had four cousins and an aunt who were also
Sims called her boyfriend, Barry Morton, and requested that he accоmpany her to the sale. Morton agreed, and they made arrangements to meet Menzies later that night in the recreation area of the Fountain Crest subdivision in Rockdale County.
After meeting at Jennifer‘s house, Lamothe, Edwards, House, and Jennifer drove to the meeting place in one car, with Menzies driving separately in her own car. Lamothe, Edwards, and House had picked up a gun earlier that evening, аnd Edwards had the weapon with him. Menzies parked her car in the parking lot for the subdivision‘s swimming pool while House parked nearby. Menzies walked up to the car where House and the others sat waiting, and asked if they were ready. Edwards pulled back the slide to cock his pistol and confirmed that they were ready, and Menzies walked back to her car in the pool parking lot. After a few minutes, House, Edwards, and Jеnnifer walked toward the swimming pool, while Lamothe remained in the car in case a quick getaway was needed.
Sims and Morton arrived to find Menzies parked in a dark area of the pool parking lot. Sims got out of Morton‘s truck and opened the rear door,
House, Edwards, and Jennifer ran toward Morton‘s truck. Edwards approached the open passenger door of the truck and pointed a gun at Morton, ordering him to “drop everything.” Morton put his hands up in response. House thought that Edwards was pointing the gun at him and fled the scene. Morton, fearing for his life, grabbed his pistol from the seat and rolled out of the truck. Edwards shot at Morton as Morton moved toward the rear of the truck to take cover. Morton returned fire, and Edwards ran away. Sims, meanwhile, had dropped to the ground and played dead when the shooting started, thinking that Morton had been killed.
Based on Morton‘s description of her vehicle, Menzies was stopped by responding officers. Jennifer was in the front passenger seat and appeared to be dead. Paramedics took Jennifer to the hospital, but ultimately confirmed that she was dead. Menzies told police that she had been a victim of the robbery and denied that she knew Jennifer. Sergeant Daniel Lang asked Menzies to go to the sheriff‘s office to give a statement, and she agreed. At that point, Sgt. Lang considered her to be a victim.
While alone in the police interview room, Menzies spoke aloud to her deceased sister, saying, “Jen Jen, go back into your soul.” Later, after police
House was found by responding officers as he fled the area, and they brought him in for questioning. He admitted his involvement in the robbery after being informed that Jennifer had died, and he testified for the State at Menzies‘s trial.
At the crime scene, police found Edwards‘s 9mm pistol, five matching 9mm shell casings, and nine shell casings that matched to Morton‘s .40 caliber pistol. The medical examiner testified that Jennifer had suffered three gunshot wounds caused by two bullets, one of which had lethally traveled through her head and lodged in her heart.
II.
Menzies contends that the evidence introduced at trial and summarized above was insufficient to support her convictions for attempted armed robbery,
Whеn evaluating a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, we view all of the evidence admitted at trial in the light most favorable to the prosecution and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which she was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979); Hayes v. State, 292 Ga. 506, 506 (739 SE2d 313) (2013). Our limited review under the standard set out in Jackson leaves to the jury the resolution of conflicts in the testimony, the weight of the evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to be made “from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Musacchio v. United States, ___ U. S. ___, ___ (136 SCt 709, 193 LE2d 639) (2016) (citation and punctuation omitted); see Hayes, 292 Ga. at 506. The same standard of review applies when evaluating the denial of a defendant‘s motion for directed verdict. See Lewis v. State, 296 Ga. 259, 261 (765 SE2d 911) (2014); Joyner v. State, 280 Ga. 37, 38-39 (622 SE2d 319) (2005).
Accordingly, Menzies is responsible, as a party to the crime and as a co-conspirator, for the acts of her accomplices — including the possession and use of a firearm — as long as those acts were naturally or necessarily done in furtherance of the attempted robbery. See Lebis, 302 Ga. at 757-759; McLeod v. State, 297 Ga. 99, 102-103 (772 SE2d 641) (2015). This is true regardless of whether the original plan for the robbery included the use of a gun. See Hicks v. State, 295 Ga. 268, 272-273 (759 SE2d 509) (2014). And although the jury could easily have inferred that Menzies knew about the weapon from testimony that Edwards pulled back the slide and “cocked” his pistol in front of her, even absent that kind of evidence, Menzies would still be responsible for Edwards‘s use of the gun as a natural or necessary pаrt of the robbery. See Butts v. State, 297 Ga. 766, 770-771 (778 SE2d 205) (2015).
Menzies also contends that the evidence was insufficient to show that her actions proximately caused Jennifer‘s death, as required to support her felony murder conviction. “Proximate causation imposes liability for the reasonably foreseeable results of criminal conduct if there is no sufficient, independent, and unforeseen intervening cause.” Currier v. State, 294 Ga. 392, 394 (754 SE2d 17) (2014) (citation and punctuation omitted); see
To begin, robbery is a dangerous business, and it carries the foreseeable risk that the intended victim may resist. “[I]t was reasonablе to foresee that [appellant‘s accomplice], who was attempting an armed robbery, could be fatally wounded in attempting such a highly dangerous enterprise.” Robinson v. State, 298 Ga. 455, 458-459 (782 SE2d 657) (2016). Here, Edwards initiated the robbery attempt by pointing his gun in Morton‘s face and telling him to “drop everything,” and then shot at Morton when he tried to get away. This provoked Morton to return fire and led to Morton‘s shooting Jennifer when she appeаred around the rear of the truck; he thought she was coming “to finish [him] off.” The attempted armed robbery in which Menzies participated thus led in an unbroken causative chain of events to Jennifer‘s death. See id. (defendant‘s actions as party to the crime of attempted armed robbery were proximate cause of accomplice‘s death for purposes of felony murder conviction).
In shоrt, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was more than sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Menzies guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of all the crimes of which she was convicted.
Menzies contends that her trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to move for a mistrial when the prosecutor made the following statement during closing argument: “And at least what you know of Christina Menzies, and what you have seen of Christina Menzies — it‘s nice of [Menzies‘s counsel] to concede things, but Ms. Menzies never has — is she might not know the truth if it hit her in the backside.” On appeal, Menzies asserts that this portion of the State‘s argument was an improper comment on her failure to testify at trial. At the motion for new trial hearing, Menzies‘s trial counsel initially testified that he did not believе the prosecutor‘s comment to be objectionable, either at the time of trial or upon re-reading the comment at the motion for new trial hearing. After further questioning, however, trial counsel reconsidered, saying, “Quite honestly, if I think about it more, if it is objectionable, it‘s probably so egregious that it wouldn‘t require an objection. I am not sure it‘s there, but that is the idea.”
But that conclusion, whatever it may mean, is not enough. In order to prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, a defendant must show
A prosecutor‘s argument will be deemed an improper comment on the accused‘s right to remain silent if either “the prosecutor‘s manifest intention was to do just that,” or “the remarks were such that a jury would naturally and necessarily tаke the remarks to be a comment on the accused‘s right to remain silent and not to testify.” Kilgore v. State, 300 Ga. 429, 432 (796 SE2d 290) (2017). Here, as Menzies‘s trial counsel acknowledged at the motion for new
IV.
Finally, Menzies contends that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the statements she directed to her deceased sister while she sat alone in the interview room at the Rockdale County Sheriff‘s Office. Menzies argues that both statements should have been suppressed because she was unaware that she was being video recorded and had a reasonable expectation that her statements were private. And she аrgues that the first statement, in which she said, “Jen Jen, go back into your soul,” should have been suppressed on the additional ground that she was detained to the degree associated with a formal
Menzies appears to argue that the video recording of her statements constituted an unlawful search and seizure because she reasonably expected those statements to be private. But to make out a claim for an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment, a defendant must show “‘that he personally has an expectation of privacy in the place searched, and that his expectation is reasonable.‘” Smith v. State, 284 Ga. 17, 21 (663 SE2d 142) (2008) (quoting Minnesota v. Carter, 525 U. S. 83, 88 (119 SCt 469, 142 LE2d 373) (1998)). And we have previously considered the precise question Menzies raises here, whether defendants have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a police interview room. They do not. See Rashid v. State, 292 Ga. 414, 418-419 (737 SE2d 692) (2013). Because Menzies had no reasonable expectation of privacy, she cannot establish a Fourth Amendment violation, and the trial court did not err in denying her motion to suppress her statements to her deceased sister on that ground.
Here, there was no interrogation. “Interrogation for the purposes of Miranda warnings encompasses express questioning and words and actions that officers should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the subject.” Waters v. State, 281 Ga. 119, 122 (636 SE2d 538) (2006). Menzies was sitting alone in the interview rоom when she made both statements; no law enforcement officer was present, much less interrogating her. And statements made spontaneously, rather than in response to interrogation, are not subject to exclusion on the ground that the suspect has
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.