S23A1089. SHELLMAN v. THE STATE.
S23A1089
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: January 17, 2024
PINSON, Justice.
NOTICE: This оpinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court‘s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court‘s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
insufficient to sustain his convictions as a matter of constitutional due process and under
These claims fail. The evidence was sufficient to support Shellman‘s convictions, and the jury was authorized to reject as unreasonable Shellman‘s alternative hypothesis that he was framed by a police officer. And the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the journal entries under Rule 807: The entriеs had sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness because they detailed in Shanelle‘s own words her volatile relationship with Shellman, and there was no evidence that she had a motive to fabricate her statements when she wrote them. Those statements were material because they provided evidence about the nature of the relationship that sheds light
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to thе verdict, the evidence at trial showed the following. On January 13, 2016, Shanelle‘s two minor children heard her scream “get off of me,” followed by “a loud bump” from a bedroom in their home. The children went to the bedroom, saw Shanelle and Shellman lying on the floor, and called 911. When the police arrived, the children took them to the bedroom where “there was blood everywhere.” Offiсers found Shanelle and Shellman on the bedroom floor, both having suffered gunshot wounds to the head, and Shellman had a gun in his right hand. Shanelle was dead, but Shellman still had a pulse and was breathing. Emergency medical personnel took him to a hospital.
At the hospital, an investigator recovered three live .380-caliber rounds from Shellman‘s pants pocket. Once a search warrant was issued, investigators and crime scene technicians entered the home. They recovered the gun that had been in Shellman‘s hand, three live rounds from that gun, a bullet, and two spent shell casings from the
Investigators also recovered a journal from a closet in the bedroom where Shanelle and Shellman were found. At trial, thе State presented evidence that Shanelle had written in this journal in the days before the murder about her marital troubles with Shellman and her belief that Shellman no longer loved her. The journal also contained allegations of both Shanelle and Shellman‘s infidelity and recorded that Shellman and Shanelle had frequent arguments, Shellman was “mean” to Shanelle, and he was “violent for nothing.”
Many witnesses testified that Shellman was controlling and abusive towards Shanelle. Shanelle‘s best friend, Tiyisha Grisby, testified that Shanelle called her one night and asked for Grisby to pick her up after Shellman shoved Shanelle‘s head into a wall and punched her while calling her “b***h[]” and “hoe[].” Once, Shellman put a gun to Shanelle‘s head and threatened to kill her, telling her that if she ever left, he would find hеr, kill her, and bury her body where it could not be found. On several occasions, Shanelle told Grisby that she had “bruises . . . all on her body,” because she and Shellman got into frequent arguments and Shellman would punch her, pull her hair, and spit on her.
Shanelle‘s mother described Shanelle and Shellman‘s marriage as “an up-and-down relationship,” explaining that Shanelle told her that she planned to leаve Shellman. A week before the murder, Shanelle told her mother that she and Shellman had “problems,” that they “had been fighting,” and that Shellman had “hit her,” “beat her and pulled her hair out.” Shanelle‘s neighbor testified that about a month before the murder, Shanelle went to the neighbor‘s house and told her “he‘s trying to kill me, help me, he‘s trying to kill me.” Shanelle used the neighbor‘s phone to call 911 and repоrt that Shellman assaulted her and that she feared for her life. Shanelle told the responding officer that Shellman became upset because he saw a picture of her with another man from several years prior.
Shellman testified in his own defense at trial. When asked about his relationship with Shanelle, Shellman explained he and Shanelle “fussed like twice,” but were “loving eаch other right,” and that they were not “fighting,” and he disputed that he ever put a gun to Shanelle‘s head. Shellman further testified that on the day of the murder, he and Shanelle were talking in their room, and then he went out to the front porch to smoke a cigar. According to him, while outside, he saw a police officer at his neighbor‘s house and started speaking to the officer as another officer pulled up in a car and stepped out with a gun in his hand. Shellman testified that when the second officer arrived, the first officer began speaking to Shellman in an aggressive manner, but Shellman remained respectful. Shellman said that the first officer then shot him in the face, and Shellman fell down on the porch, bleeding. According to Shellman, one of the officers placed a gun on the right side of Shellman‘s pants. Per Shellman‘s testimony, an officer then stepped on his face as the officer went inside his house. Shellman testified that he lost consciousness and that he had no knowledge of anything that happened between that moment and when he awoke, months later. Shellman denied killing his wife, attempting to commit suicide, or owning a gun at the time of his wife‘s death.
2. Shellman claims that the evidence was not sufficient to support his convictions for malice murder or possession of a firearm by a convicted felon during a crime, either as a matter of constitutional due process, see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979), or under
(a) When evaluating a due process challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, “we view the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted.” Peacock v. State, 314 Ga. 709, 714 (2) (b) (878 SE2d 247) (2022) (citation and punctuation omitted). See also Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319 (III) (B). In doing so, we “leave to the jury the resolution of conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence, credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to be derived from the facts.” Perkins v. State, 313 Ga. 885, 891 (2) (a) (873 SE2d 185) (2022) (citation and punctuation omitted).
In support of his claim that the evidence was not sufficient as a matter of due process, Shellman offers only a conclusory suggestion that “the absence of evidence elucidating what happened” was not a sufficient basis for the jury‘s finding of guilt. But the evidence summarized above authorized the jury to find Shellman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of malice murder and the related firearm-possession count. Shanelle‘s two children testified that they heard Shanelle scream “get off of me,” then heard a loud “bump,” after which they went into the bеdroom and found Shanelle and Shellman lying on the floor with severe injuries and Shellman with a gun in his hand. And testimony from responding police officers was consistent with the children‘s testimony that both Shellman and Shanelle were on the bedroom floor. Further, a GBI firearms expert testified that all the ballistics evidence found at the crime scene and the bullet removed from Shanelle‘s head were fired by the gun in Shellman‘s hand, and that ammunition found in Shellman‘s pants pocket also matched the ballistics evidence. See Smith v. State, 315 Ga. 357, 359-361 (1) (882 SE2d 289) (2022) (evidence was sufficient to support malice murder conviction where two witnesses identified the defendant as holding a rifle near the victim and a firearms expert matched shell casings found at the crime scene and the bullet that killed the victim with a rifle found nеar the defendant‘s house). Finally, multiple witnesses testified about the tumultuous nature of Shellman and Shanelle‘s relationship and Shellman‘s history of abusing Shanelle. This evidence was sufficient to support Shellman‘s convictions as a matter of constitutional due process.
(b) A conviction can rest on circumstantial evidence alone if that evidence “exclude[s] every othеr reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.”
Shellman claims that the evidence was not sufficient under
Even assuming the evidence against Shellman was entirely circumstantial, the evidence authorized the jury to reject Shellman‘s alternative hypothesis as unreasonable. As recounted above, Shellman‘s two children and the responding officers all testified that Shellman and Shanelle were lying wounded on the bedroom floor, not on the front porch as he claimed. And the bullet recovered from Shanelle‘s body matched not only the gun in Shellman‘s hand, but also the ammunition in his pocket. That evidence authorized the jury to reject as unreasonable Shellman‘s claim that he was actually shot outside the house,
3. Shellman also contends that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of Shanelle‘s journal entries under Rule 807 because the entries failed to meet the requirements of that rule. “[A] trial court‘s decision to admit hearsay evidence is reviewed for an abuse of its discretion.” Kennebrew v. State, 317 Ga. 324, 335 (4) (893 SE2d 96) (2023) (citation and punctuation omitted).
(a) Before trial, the State filed a notice of its intent to offer hearsay statements from Shanelle‘s journal under Rule 807 and later filеd a proffer of the statements. After a hearing and over Shellman‘s objection, the trial court ruled that certain portions of the journal were admissible under “Rule 807 if offered in the proper context and procedurally.”
At trial, the State established that police found the journal in the closet in the bedroom of the crime scene. And Shanelle‘s mother identified the handwriting in the journal as Shanelle‘s, explaining that she recognized Shanelle‘s handwriting because she had received cards and letters from her.
The State published the admitted portions of the journal to the jury. The journal showed Shanelle‘s thoughts regarding her relationship with Shellman in the days before the murder. Shanelle wrote that she was unhappy, and that Shellman treated her “like s**t,” made her “fеel like nothing,” was “violent for nothing,” and “no longer love[d] [her.]” The entries also expressed that Shellman and Shanelle had frequent “arguments [stemming] from [Shellman‘s] irrational thinking,” that Shellman accused Shanelle of being unfaithful and lying “about everything” and “for nothing,” and that because he did not believe her, she was “scared of what may happen.”
(b) Rule 807 is often referred to as the residual hearsay exception. Under this rule, a statement “not specifically covered by any law” but having “equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness” is not excluded by the hearsay rule if the court determines that “(1) [t]he statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (2) [t]he statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and (3) [t]he general purposes of the rules of evidence and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.”
On appeal, Shellman does not contеnd that the journal entries were inadmissible under Rule 807 because they were “specifically covered” by another law,
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the journal entries had sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness. Whether a statement is sufficiently trustworthy is determined by “the circumstances under which the statements were originally made rather than the credibility of the witness reporting them in court.” Jones, 311 Ga. at 460 (2) (b) (cleaned up). Here, the entries detailed in Shanelle‘s “own words” her volatile relationship with Shellman, and there was no evidence suggesting that Shanelle “had a motive to fabricate her statements when she wrotе them.” Id. Further, the journal entries’ depiction of Shanelle and Shellman‘s relationship was consistent with testimony from Shanelle‘s mother, best friend, and neighbor,
The journal entries also met the requirements of Rule 807 (1)-(3). The entries were material because they offered firsthand details in Shanelle‘s own words about the nature of her and Shellman‘s relationship, including allegations of infidelity and dishonesty, the couple‘s frequent arguments, Shellman‘s anger, jealousy, and violence, and Shanelle‘s sentiment that she was unhappy and that Shellman “no longer love[d] [her]” in the days leаding up to the murder. In other words, the entries provided “evidence of the nature of the relationship between” Shellman and Shanelle “that sheds light on” his “motive in committing the offenses charged.” Jones, 311 Ga. at 461 (2) (b) (cleaned up). See also Smart v. State, 299 Ga. 414, 418 (2) (a) (788 SE2d 442) (2016) (“[The] testimony was relevant to help the jury understand why [the appellant] might have used violence against [the victim].“).
Shellman also has not shown that there was “other evidence that the State could have procured with reasonable efforts that would have been more probative to show” Shellman‘s motive than the journal entries, which provided Shanelle‘s “firsthand account of her relationship with” Shellman. Jones, 311 Ga. at 461 (2) (b). As for the entries’ probative value, when, as here, an alleged victim of domestic violence is deceased, the victim‘s “own writings” describing acts of domestic viоlence may be “highly probative” “in light of the often-secretive nature of domestic violence.” Smart, 299 Ga. at 422 (3). Although other witnesses also testified in general terms about the nature of Shellman and Shanelle‘s relationship, it was within the trial court‘s discretion to conclude that Shanelle‘s own contemporaneous account was more probative than any third party‘s testimony.
Finally, Shellman offers no argument that the interests of justice were not best served by the admission of the journal entries. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the journal entries under Rule 807.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.