1. (a) In March 2012, a DeKalb County grand jury indicted Spratlin and Isaiah Blackmon on charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault on Cobb, aggravated assault on Stanton Gilliam, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Spratlin and Blackmon were tried together beginning on October 28, 2013.
The evidence presented at trial showed the following.
According to Gilliam, he called his friend and neighbor Cobb to come over when Blackmon arrived because Gilliam felt uncomfortable about having to deal with two people when he had been expecting to be dealing with Spratlin alone. The men continued to negotiate,
Abner, who had been waiting in her car, testified that after she heard the gunshots, she started to drive away when she saw Spratlin run out of the house in a panic saying, "They're trying to rob me." Spratlin got into Abner's car and they drove away. Abner did not see Blackmon leave the house, and she never saw Spratlin with a gun.
Experts testified that Cobb had a grazing gunshot wound to the back of the head. He was shot through his arm and into his side by a .40-caliber bullet fired from close range. The fatal wounds were caused by two .38-caliber bullets fired into his back; there was no
Spratlin was tracked to Alabama, where - 16 days after the shooting - detectives found him with Blackmon and an unidentified woman. Both suspects fled when the plainclothes detectives approached. Spratlin ran across the street but was quickly apprehended; Blackmon was later found hiding a mile away. A few days after the men were arrested, Gilliam saw Blackmon's photo on a mugshot website for DeKalb County, where Blackmon was listed as being charged with housing a fugitive. Gilliam called one of the detectives investigating the shooting and told him that "they had the shooter under the wrong charge." While in jail, Blackmon told his mother over the phone that he "gave the gun to someone to get rid of."
Neither defendant testified. Spratlin's primary theory of defense was mere presence. Spratlin's counsel acknowledged that Spratlin set up the drug deal, but argued that he was surprised by Blackmon's spontaneous decision to rob and shoot Gilliam and Cobb.
(b) During its case-in-chief, the State elicited testimony from three witnesses regarding Spratlin's pretrial silence. First, as mentioned above, Abner testified that after she heard the gunshots, Spratlin ran toward her car and said, "They're trying to rob me." The prosecutor then asked the following questions:
Q. Ms. Abner, when DeJuan Spratlin jumped back in the car, did he ever tell you to call 911?
A. No.
Q. Did he ever tell you to drive to a police station so he could tell them what happened to him?
A. No.
Second, a detective from the Birmingham Police Department ("the Alabama detective") testified that he located and arrested
Q. Did you ask [Spratlin] if he wanted to make a statement?
A. No ma'am.
Q. Did he make a statement? Did he tell you anything?
A. No ma'am.
Q. Okay. And when you got there, did you have the occasion to interview anyone?
A. Yes.
Q. Who did you interview?
A. I interviewed DeJuan Spratlin and Isaiah Blackmon.
Q. And what, if anything, did either of them tell you?
A. DeJuan refused to make a statement. When I interviewed Isaiah, I noticed that he seemed to be under the influence of something. So I did not continue with the interview, knowing that he was going to be coming back to DeKalb County.
Spratlin's counsel did not object to any of this testimony.
At the close of the State's case-in-chief, with the jury outside the courtroom, Spratlin moved for a directed verdict of acquittal. In response, the prosecutor argued that after the shooting, "[Spratlin] made no phone calls to the police. He didn't go to the police."
Closing arguments were not taken down by the court reporter. After the arguments concluded and a lunch break (and with the court reporter taking down the proceedings again), Spratlin's counsel made an objection and moved for a mistrial, asserting that the prosecutor had "made a reference of Mr. Spratlin not talking to the police at any point" during the State's rebuttal argument. The parties disagreed about exactly what the prosecutor had said, but the trial court indicated that the prosecutor should not have referred to Spratlin's "not making a statement to the police" and should not have said "anything about the defendant remaining silent." The court denied the mistrial motion, but added the following curative instruction to the jury charges:
A defendant in a criminal case is under no duty to present any evidence tending to prove innocence and is not requiredto take the stand and testify in the case. Furthermore, let me add that a defendant is not required to make any statement to the police. If a defendant elects not to testify or if a defendant elects not to make any statement to the police, no inference hurtful, harmful, or adverse to the defendant shall be drawn by the jury, nor shall such fact be held against a defendant in any way.
On November 1, 2013, the jury found Spratlin guilty of all charges except the aggravated assault of Gilliam. The trial court sentenced Spratlin to serve life in prison for malice murder and a consecutive term of five years for the firearm charge. The remaining convictions were vacated or merged.
(c) Spratlin's trial counsel then filed a "Motion for New Trial and Motion to Correct and/or Complete the Record," which was amended in December 2014. The motion argued, among other things, that the trial transcript needed to be supplemented to include the prosecutor's comments on Spratlin's silence during closing arguments as well as counsel's objections to those comments. After holding an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Spratlin's motion in February 2015. As to supplementing the record, the court ruled that the transcript of the discussion about the motion for mistrial "aligns with the Court's memory of the State's rebuttal argument about Spratlin's refusal to talk to the police." The court added that although Spratlin's counsel asserted that the prosecutor had also said, "Why didn't [Spratlin] testify?" the court would have "certainly addressed any violation as blatant as [that] on the record."
Spratlin filed a notice of appeal, and the case was docketed in this Court in July 2015. However, Spratlin then obtained new counsel, who successfully moved this Court to remand the case to the trial court to allow him to raise a claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.
Trial counsel acknowledged, however, that he could have objected to the testimony outside the jury's presence. When asked why he did not make a motion in limine to prevent any further testimony or comments about Spratlin's silence, trial counsel said that he did not consider that option because he had never filed such a motion "to basically tell the State to act appropriately" and "you don't anticipate a prosecutor or those types of statements being elicited on direct testimony." Finally, counsel said that he did not object to the Georgia detective's testimony about Spratlin's refusal to make a statement for the same reasons that he did not object to the Alabama detective's testimony, although he did object to the State's closing argument comments, which were "directly in reference to" the Georgia detective's testimony.
At the hearing, Spratlin based his legal arguments on federal circuit court cases holding that, under certain circumstances, a prosecutor's comment on the defendant's pretrial silence violates the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Rather than responding to those federal constitutional arguments, the State based its argument on Georgia cases applying the evidentiary rule this Court announced in an old Georgia Evidence Code case - Mallory v. State,
In February 2018, the trial court entered an order granting Spratlin a new trial. After ruling that Spratlin's trial counsel was not ineffective with respect to Abner's testimony - a ruling not at issue on appeal - the court held that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the Alabama and Georgia detectives' testimony and failing to prevent the prosecutor's comments during closing arguments. The court rejected trial counsel's excuses for not objecting to the detectives' testimony, explaining that "the Court remembers that upon hearing the detectives' testimony, it would have sustained an objection if counsel had raised one" and that "counsel always has the option of raising objections outside the presence of the jury." The court added that if trial counsel had objected to the testimony and had it excluded, the prosecutor would not have improperly commented on Spratlin's silence during closing argument. The court noted the curative instruction it gave the jury, but said nothing about its effect. The court concluded that Spratlin had established both deficient performance and prejudice under
2. As we have explained many times before:
To establish that his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective, [a defendant] must prove both deficient performance by counsel and resulting prejudice. See Strickland v. Washington,, 687, 466 U.S. 668 , 104 S.Ct. 2052 (1984). To show that his lawyer's performance was deficient, [the defendant] must demonstrate that the lawyer performed his duties in an objectively unreasonable way, considering all the circumstances and in the light of prevailing professional norms. See 80 L.Ed.2d 674 id. at 687-690 []. This is no easy showing, as the law recognizes a "strong presumption" that counsel performed reasonably, and [the defendant] bears the burden of overcoming this presumption. 104 S.Ct. 2052 Id. at 689 []. To carry this burden, he must show that no reasonable lawyer would have done what his lawyer did, or would have failed to do what his lawyer did not. See Humphrey v. Nance, 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 192, 293 Ga. 189 (2013). In particular, 744 S.E.2d 706 "decisions regarding trial tactics and strategy may form the basis for an ineffectiveness claim only if they were so patently unreasonable that no competent attorney would have followed such a course." Reed v. State, , 882, 294 Ga. 877 (2014). 757 S.E.2d 84
Even when a defendant has proved that his counsel's performance was deficient in this constitutional sense, he also must prove prejudice by showing "a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Strickland,[ 466 U.S. at 694]. "It is not enough to show that the errors had some conceivable effect on the outcome of the proceeding." Harrington v. Richter, 104 S.Ct. 2052 , 104, 562 U.S. 86 , 131 S.Ct. 770 (2011) (citation and punctuation omitted). Rather, [the defendant] must demonstrate a "reasonable probability" of a different result, which, the United States Supreme Court has explained, is "a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Strickland, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 [ 466 U.S. at 694]. 104 S.Ct. 2052
Davis v. State,
(a) The State contends that Spratlin's trial counsel was not deficient in failing to object to comments on Spratlin's silence based on the evidentiary rule announced in Mallory. It is true, as the State argues, that Spratlin's trial counsel would not have been deficient for failing to object to comments about Spratlin's pre-arrest silence on that ground, because this Court has not yet decided whether Mallory's rule applies to cases tried under Georgia's new Evidence Code, which had taken effect when this case was tried in October 2013. See Eller v. State,
In Fletcher v. Weir,
Thus, we properly consider the testimony and comments about Spratlin's post-arrest silence through the lens of the federal Constitution rather than Mallory. The Alabama detective arrested Spratlin, but the record does not indicate that the detective ever gave Spratlin the Miranda warnings, and it appears that the detective never conducted a custodial interrogation, because he specifically denied asking Spratlin to make a statement. Indeed, it appears that the Alabama detectives simply apprehended Spratlin and Blackmon on behalf of the DeKalb County police. Nor does the record indicate that Spratlin affirmatively invoked his right to silence after the Alabama detective arrested him, as opposed to merely saying nothing. See Berghuis v. Thompkins,
There appears to be no controlling precedent from the United States Supreme Court or a Georgia appellate court on whether this precise type of testimony is constitutionally prohibited - post-arrest, pre- Miranda-warnings, without interrogation or an affirmative invocation of the right to silence, and offered in the State's case rather than only for impeachment. Neither party has identified such controlling authority, and the federal circuit courts appear to be split on the issue. Compare, e.g., United States v. Moore,
The Georgia detective's testimony was clearly objectionable, however, because he was attempting to interrogate Spratlin in a custodial setting and Spratlin invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent by "refus[ing] to make a statement." See Miranda
Trial counsel did perform deficiently, however, with respect to the prosecutor's
(b) We turn to considering the effect of trial counsel's deficient performance on the result of Spratlin's trial. In addressing the Strickland prejudice issue, it is important to recognize that the trial
Moreover, while the prosecutor improperly suggested to the jury that Spratlin had an obligation to tell his story to the police when the Georgia detective interviewed him, the impact of that argument was mitigated in two significant ways. First, the prosecutor's comments were somewhat cumulative, because the jury also heard about Spratlin's pre-trial silence through Abner's testimony that Spratlin did not seek to tell his story to the police right after emerging from Gilliam's house; that testimony was not challenged by Spratlin's post -arrest-silence ineffective-assistance claim and remains unchallenged on appeal.
Second, the trial court gave the jury a strong curative instruction, explaining that "a defendant is not required to make any statement to the police" and cautioning the jury that "if a defendant elects not to make any statement to the police, no inference hurtful, harmful, or adverse to the defendant shall be drawn by the jury, nor shall such fact be held against a defendant in any way." We ordinarily presume that jurors follow such instructions. See, e.g., Mangram v. State,
Moreover, although the evidence against Spratlin was not as strong as in other cases in which we have held that similar comments on post-arrest silence were harmless or not prejudicial, see, e.g., Taylor v. State,
The forensic evidence demonstrates that two different guns were used in the shooting, with the shots that struck Cobb in the arm and side from close range and Gilliam in the leg being fired by a .40-caliber pistol wielded by Blackmon and the two fatal shots fired into Cobb's back from a .38 Special or .357 Magnum from an unknown range. Although Gilliam and Abner testified that they did not see Spratlin with a gun, Gilliam was hiding in a closet when the final shots were fired, and Abner saw Spratlin only before and after the shootings, when he could easily have concealed a weapon. Three witnesses testified that no guns were kept in the house, and a few days after the crimes, Blackmon was trying to sell two guns, one of a type used in the shooting.
Spratlin fled the crime scene with Abner and without Blackmon, but that is also how he and Blackmon had arrived there. Perhaps most inconsistent with Spratlin's claim that he was surprised by Blackmon's attack on Cobb and Gilliam and had nothing to do with it is the fact that he was found with Blackmon again 16 days later, not just coincidentally somewhere in the Atlanta area but hiding out together and then fleeing from the police more than 100 miles away in Birmingham. The jury was instructed on the concept of parties to a crime, see OCGA § 16-2-20, and it could draw the natural - and under these circumstances, strong - inference that Spratlin and Blackmon shared a common criminal intent based on their presence, companionship, and conduct with each other before, during, and after
For these reasons, we conclude that there is not a reasonable probability that, but for the limited deficient performance by Spratlin's trial counsel, the jury at his trial would have reached a different result. See Strickland,
Judgment reversed.
All the Justices concur, except Melton, C.J., who dissents.
Notes
Because this appeal requires us to evaluate the strength of the evidence of Spratlin's guilt, we do not describe the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts.
The jury found Blackmon guilty of all charges except malice murder; this Court affirmed his convictions in Blackmon v. State,
We have granted a petition for certiorari to address this question. See State v. Orr, No. S18G0994 (orally argued on January 23, 2019).
The trial court's assertion that "upon hearing the detectives' testimony, it would have sustained an objection if counsel had raised one" is not controlling. A competent lawyer is not required to make every objection that the court would sustain, and as discussed above, it is not clear that an objection to the Alabama detective's testimony on constitutional grounds would have been properly sustained.
We note in this respect that the State again misunderstands the pertinent law. The State argued to the trial court and argues in its brief here that because the evidence was sufficient to support Spratlin's convictions (as the trial court ruled in denying his first motion for new trial), he could not demonstrate Strickland prejudice . In evaluating whether the evidence presented at a trial was legally sufficient as a matter of due process, the court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts to determine if a rational jury could find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia,