Smith v. StateSmith v. State
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Jared Kelvin Smith was convicted of malice murder and theft by taking in connection with the stabbing death of Ronald Roach.1 Smith‘s sole contention on appeal is that the trial court erred in allowing the medical examiner to provide expert opinion testimony about blood-spatter evidence depicted in photographs of the crime
The evidence presented at Smith‘s trial showed the following. Roach‘s body was discovered in his apartment on the floor of his bedroom on the morning of June 28, 2018. A detective who responded to the crime scene found no indication of forced entry and observed blood inside the kitchen, on a light switch in the dining room just outside the kitchen, on the wall in the rear bedroom where Roach‘s body was found, and on the sheets and pillowcases in the bedroom, including a large amount of blood by the headboard. He observed Roach lying on the floor on his back beside the bed.
During his investigation, the detective discovered that Roach‘s vehicle was missing. According to the neighbors who lived in the apartment below Roach‘s, they heard an argument, loud noise, stomping, and screaming upstairs at around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. on the morning Roach was killed. They also heard the sound of someone running outside the apartment and a car engine cranking and a car driving away. When Smith was arrested and interviewed about a month later, he admitted to detectives that he went to Roach‘s
At Smith‘s trial, evidence about Roach‘s bank account and records from Uber Technologies, Inc., were presented to show that Roach paid for rideshare services on the evening of June 27, 2018—including for a ride to a location near Roach‘s apartment for a man later identified as Albury. Evidence of a social media account in Roach‘s name and accessed on his computer showed conversations between Albury and Roach, who was posing as a female and invited Albury over for a sexual encounter.
Prentiss Green testified that on the night of June 27, 2018,
Text messages extracted from Rowe‘s cell phone showed that on June 29, when Rowe asked Smith when she would see him again, he answered “[h]ow am I supposed to know I‘m probably finna [sic] be in jail soon,” and she responded “[f]or what you didn‘t do anything.” Rowe testified that on the night of Roach‘s murder, while she was in a relationship with Smith and pregnant with his child, Smith sent an Uber to bring her to Roach‘s apartment, where she engaged in sexual activity with Smith and Albury while Roach sat
According to Rowe, she then went back to Roach‘s apartment with Smith and Albury. A heated argument ensued, and Smith struck Roach three times with a closed fist on the back of Roach‘s neck while Roach was sitting at his dining room table. Roach ran to his bedroom and tried to close the door, but Smith forced the door open. Rowe heard fighting, walked to the bedroom, saw blood on the bed, and observed Smith attacking Roach on one side of the bed. Albury sat and watched from the other side of the bed, and Rowe left the apartment to smoke outside.
After 15 to 20 minutes, Smith, Albury, and Rowe left in Roach‘s car. They drove to Rowe‘s house, where Smith changed his clothes and cleaned blood off his chest and knuckles. They next went to Smith‘s house, where Smith changed clothes a second time and Albury also changed clothes. Smith later dropped off Albury and
Dr. Christy Cunningham, a DeKalb County medical examiner who performed Roach‘s autopsy, was qualified as an expert in forensic pathology at trial. She testified that Roach‘s cause of death was multiple stab wounds, and she identified 38 stab wounds across Roach‘s body that were characteristic of wounds made by a knife. She also identified blunt-force trauma injuries on Roach‘s head and face.
When asked by the prosecutor, Dr. Cunningham provided testimony about the crime scene; the defense did not object. Specifically, she testified that a photograph depicting a blood-smear pattern that investigators found next to Roach‘s bedroom door would be consistent with “testimony that the victim was trying to keep the door closed and that someone forced their way in,” and that another
The prosecutor then asked Dr. Cunningham if the blood evidence at the crime scene would be consistent with testimony that the victim was first attacked in a different room, “ran to his bedroom and tried to close the door, that someone forced their way into the room and then an attack ensued . . . and then [the victim] was stabbed to death in that area.” Defense counsel objected on the ground that Dr. Cunningham was “not an expert as to blood,” and the trial court overruled the objection. Dr. Cunningham then testified that the prosecutor‘s hypothetical was a “likely” or “possible” scenario based on the pattern of wounds on Roach‘s body, but that to determine whether Roach had died under such
After the jury convicted Smith of malice murder and theft by taking, he filed a motion for new trial, contending, among other things, that the trial court erred in allowing Dr. Cunningham to testify as an expert as to blood-spatter evidence. The trial court denied the motion, concluding that “[a]ny error in allowing the medical examiner to give this minimal opinion about blood spatter was harmless.”
On appeal, Smith argues that the State did not lay the requisite foundation to qualify Dr. Cunningham as an expert in
In evaluating the potential harm resulting from Dr. Cunningham‘s blood-spatter testimony, however, we are faced with two standards of review on appeal. We review the evidentiary claims that Smith preserved for ordinary appellate review—i.e., the aspects of Dr. Cunningham‘s testimony to which Smith objected at trial—for harmless error. See Allen v. State, 310 Ga. 411, 415 (851 SE2d 541) (2020). A nonconstitutional error is “harmless if the State
Here, we need not parse through each of Dr. Cunningham‘s blood-spatter references to apply the relevant standard of appellate review to each one before assessing the aggregate harm of the testimony that we have assumed to be inadmissible, because Smith‘s claim fails under the harmless-error standard of review that is more favorable to him. See Allen, 310 Ga. at 417 (“We have yet to decide how multiple standards for assessing prejudice may interact . . . , and again we need not do so here, because Allen‘s claims fail under any of the standards.“). Cf. Finney, 311 Ga. at 14 (“We need not address how to reconcile the differing standards that apply to the errors here, because even applying the more stringent plain error standard, we conclude that the cumulative effect of the errors requires the reversal of Appellant‘s convictions.“). To that end,
But Smith‘s argument places more weight on Dr. Cunningham‘s blood-spatter testimony than it can bear. To begin, much of the testimony Dr. Cunningham offered in response to the prosecutor‘s questions about blood spatter pertained to Roach‘s wounds and blood loss—a topic on which she was qualified as an expert in forensic pathology—and not to the blood spatters found at the scene. And the aspect of her testimony that did pertain to blood
Moreover, Smith‘s argument that Dr. Cunningham‘s blood-spatter testimony “bolstered” Rowe‘s trial testimony in a way that affected the jury‘s verdicts fails because of the strength of the evidence other than Rowe‘s and Dr. Cunningham‘s testimony that connected Smith to Roach‘s murder. That evidence included Smith‘s admitted presence in Roach‘s apartment with Roach, Albury, and Rowe; Smith‘s later possession of Roach‘s car; and the text message Smith sent to Rowe the day after Roach‘s murder expressing that he
In sum, we conclude that it is highly probable that any error in admitting Dr. Cunningham‘s blood-spatter testimony did not contribute to the verdicts. See Lane, 308 Ga. at 21. Smith‘s claim therefore fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.