S21A0152. ROGERS v. THE STATE.
S21A0152
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: June 1, 2021
WARREN, Justice.
Robert Rogers was convicted of felony murder in connection with the shooting death of Richard Trantham, Jr. On appeal, Rogers contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court committed plain error when it admitted certain testimony from a State witness. Seeing no reversible error, we affirm.1
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial shows the following. On March 26, 2016, Trantham and two of his friends were inside his mobile home on Saw Mill Road in Wayne County when Andy O‘Quinn—an acquaintance—showed up. After spending a few minutes in the living room, O‘Quinn asked Trantham to “walk out with him to get a beer.” While the two were outside, the friends who were still inside the trailer heard a gunshot, went to the back door, and saw Trantham lying on the back porch. When emergency personnel arrived at the residence, they found Trantham deceased, with a “large hole” in the center of his chest. Some drug paraphernalia was found in the pockets of Trantham‘s shorts. An autopsy revealed that Trantham died from a single, high-velocity gunshot wound to the back, though the range from which the bullet was fired could not be determined.
The victim‘s brother, David Trantham, testified that Trantham had a drug problem and had “slipped back” into his drug habit before his death. According to David, Trantham had “gone downhill quite a bit” and had robbed Dana Fossett, a woman who had provided Trantham with drugs. Trantham had told David that, as a result of the robbery, “they had took a hit out on him, and he was pretty sure something was going to happen.”
At trial, O‘Quinn—who was indicted separately for Trantham‘s murder but obtained a plea offer—testified that, on the day of the shooting, he was contacted by Rogers, whom
Later that day, O‘Quinn testified, he picked up Rogers at a local store, and they drove in O‘Quinn‘s car toward Trantham‘s home. Rogers got out of the car on Saw Mill Road “between some houses and a field“—ostensibly to “watch” and “scare” Trantham—while O‘Quinn continued to Trantham‘s residence, where he spent some time talking with Trantham and the others who were inside. At some point, O‘Quinn walked outside to get a beer and Trantham followed him out. The two men then sat in O‘Quinn‘s car and had a brief conversation. Trantham then exited the car and walked back toward the mobile home, at which point O‘Quinn backed out of the driveway and drove home. O‘Quinn testified that he did not hear a gunshot. He also testified that he did not pick up Rogers because Rogers had told him earlier that Rogers was going to walk back to Rogers‘s car, which was parked at the local store.
Rogers was arrested several days after the shooting and was interviewed by a GBI Special Agent, Richard Dyal. During that interview, an audio recording of which was played for the jury at trial, Rogers initially denied being present at the crime scene, but he eventually admitted to being involved in the killing. Specifically, Agent Dyal expressed his belief that Rogers shot Trantham, and he asked Rogers about his motivation. Rogers responded that he wanted to “scare” Trantham because Trantham had stolen cash and other items from Rogers‘s house about three months earlier. To that end, Rogers said, he went to Trantham‘s residence, positioned himself outside the mobile home with a scoped rifle, and waited for Trantham to come out. When Trantham came out on the back porch, Rogers aimed for the light on the porch, but shot “a little to the left” and hit Trantham instead. Rogers then ran off and threw the rifle in the woods. In addition to the interview, other evidence showed that Rogers told the same story—that he shot at the porch light to scare Trantham—to his mother and daughter.
Rogers testified in his own defense. He admitted that he went to Trantham‘s house with O‘Quinn on the night of March 26 to “confront” Trantham about the theft of items from his house months earlier. But Rogers denied that he fired a gun or that he even had a gun in his possession, and he claimed that he did not know who fired the shot that killed Trantham. Rogers also claimed that he lied to the police about the shooting to protect himself and his family from the unknown shooter.
2. Rogers first contends that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to support his conviction because, he says, it did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence—particularly the hypothesis that someone else shot Trantham. See
In challenging the sufficiency of the evidence, Rogers also contends that the State failed to rebut the affirmative defense of accident beyond a reasonable doubt. We disagree. As discussed above, the State‘s evidence showed that Rogers intentionally fired a gun in Trantham‘s direction, which rebuts any defense of accident. See
We conclude that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Rogers guilty of felony murder beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
3. Rogers contends that the trial court erred when it admitted Agent Dyal‘s testimony about the “real story” behind Rogers‘s motive in shooting Trantham. On redirect examination, the prosecutor elicited the following testimony from Agent Dyal:
[PROSECUTOR:] Now, [defense counsel] made a big point about you going back and forth, and confronting [Rogers] on several occasions about the true story, the real story, what you thought had happened and why he was being not truthful with you about the break-in being the reason he went out there. What was the real story that you thought had happened?
[AGENT DYAL:] I thought that Mr. Trantham had owed money to [Fossett] for drugs, had ripped or stolen the money, that Mr. Rogers, being an associate, had been sent out there to kill Mr. Trantham.
Rogers argues that the trial court should have excluded this testimony because, he claims, it clearly violated several provisions of the Evidence Code.3
As Rogers concedes, however, he did not object at trial to the testimony in question, so his claim can be reviewed only for plain error. See Westbrook v. State, 308 Ga. 92, 101 (839 SE2d 620) (2020). To succeed on a plain-error claim, the defendant must demonstrate an error that was not “affirmatively waived,” that was “clear and not open to reasonable dispute,” that “probably affected the outcome of his trial,” and that “seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Bozzie v. State, 302 Ga. 704, 707 (808 SE2d 671) (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted). “The failure to meet one element of this test dooms a plain error claim.” Denson v. State, 307 Ga. 545, 548 (837 SE2d 261) (2019).
Here, even assuming (without deciding) that the trial court erred in admitting Agent Dyal‘s statement about Rogers‘s motive, Rogers has failed to show that this alleged error likely affected the outcome of the trial. To begin, during the recorded interview with Rogers (the admission of which he does not challenge), Agent Dyal repeatedly expressed his belief that Rogers was lying when he said that he just wanted to scare Trantham in retaliation for stealing items from his house months earlier. Thus, the jury would not have been surprised by Agent Dyal‘s testimony that he believed Rogers had some other motive for the shooting. See Thompson v. State, 304 Ga. 146, 153 (816 SE2d 646) (2018) (defendant failed to show harm from detective‘s testimony that she believed defendant was the shooter, in part because the jury would not have been surprised to know that the detective believed in defendant‘s guilt). See also Pyatt v. State, 298 Ga. 742, 755 (784 SE2d 759) (2016) (“Comments upon the patently obvious generally pose little, if any, danger of prejudice.“) (citation and punctuation omitted).
Moreover, evidence independent of Agent Dyal‘s statement showed that Rogers may have killed Trantham at Fossett‘s behest. Trantham‘s brother testified that before the shooting, Trantham said that he had robbed Fossett, who was his drug supplier, and that “they had took a hit out on him” as a result of the robbery. Other testimony showed that Rogers had a relationship with Fossett and that on the day of the shooting, Rogers stopped by Fossett‘s house and had a conversation with her about Trantham. Because Agent Dyal‘s statement merely conveyed information that the jury could have surmised from his interview with Rogers and from other evidence, it is unlikely that this statement affected the jury‘s verdict. Rogers‘s claim of plain error therefore fails. See Thompson, 304 Ga. at 153. See also Mosley v. State, 298 Ga. 849, 852-853 (785 SE2d 297) (2016) (rejecting defendant‘s plain-error claim because the challenged testimony was cumulative of properly admitted evidence); McKinney v. State, 307 Ga. 129, 135 (834 SE2d 741) (2019) (same).
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.