State v. ThomasState v. Thomas
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Tylеr Thomas was convicted of malice murder and a firearm crime in connection with the fatal shooting of Ashley Brown during a planned drug deal. The trial court granted Thomas’s motion for new trial, however, ruling that the State violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (83 SCt 1194, 10 LE2d 215) (1963), by failing to disclose a deal between the State and its witness Jaleesa Glenn. On appeal, the State argues that the order granting a new trial should be reversed, while Thomas argues in his cross-appeal that the evidence presented at his trial was legally insufficient to support the jury’s guilty verdicts, so a re-trial should be barred by double jeopardy. We reject the arguments in both cases and affirm the trial
The Trial
1. The evidence presented at Thomas’s trial showed the following. Ricardo Thomas, Thomas’s co-indictee and cousin, provided much of the evidenсe about the events surrounding the shooting, testifying as follows. On June 22, 2013, Ricardo, who was a drug dealer, arranged for his friend Brown to buy more than nine
After dinner, Ricardo and Melvin went to some apartments close by, where they stayed for 30 to 45 minutes and met and talked to Thomas. Then Thomas left to get cocaine for the deal, and Ricardo and Melvin went to a nearby McDonald’s restaurant, where Ricardo met Brown, who was driving a burgundy Cadillac Escalade. After about 10 minutes at McDonald’s, Melvin left. Brown then drove
As Ricardo and Brown were nearing the apartment complex, Thomas called Ricardo and gave him further instructions, including telling him to back into a certain parking spot near the back of the complex. Thomas was already there, in the driver’s seat of a maroon Nissan Altima that belonged to his girlfriend Jaleesa Glenn; a man Ricardo had heard people call “Turtle” was in the car too. Thomas got out of the Altima and into the back passenger’s side of the Escalade, sliding toward the middle; Turtle stayed in the Altima. In the Escalade, Ricardo asked Thomas if the cocaine was “clean”; Thomas said that it was. Brown and Thomas exchanged brief greetings. Then Thomas suddenly pulled out a gun, pointed it at Brown, and told Brown to “[g]ive it up.” Brown moved toward the driver’s door as Ricardo jumped out of the car and ran away. As he ran, he heard two or three gunshots come from inside the Escalade.
Ricardo walked away from the apartment complex and called Thomas and Brown, but neither man answered. Then Thomas called Ricardo, asked if he was all right, and told him not to say anything. Ricardo called yet another cousin to get a ride back to Carrollton. Ricardo next saw Thomas about two weeks after the shooting. Thomas again told Ricardo not to say anything about what happened, threatening to put out an order for Ricardo to be shot if he said anything. Thomas also told Ricardo that Brown’s Escalade had hit and damaged the Altima on the back right side.2
Melvin testified that between 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. on the day of the car show, he called Ricardo and then picked him up to drive to
Glenn testifiеd that she and Thomas were “old friends” and that she let Thomas borrow her Altima on the day of the murder. He took the car late in the evening and returned it the next morning. When he returned it, the car had been damaged on the back right side. Thomas told her that a motorcycle had hit him and that she should file a report falsely telling the police and her insurance company that she had been involved in a hit and run. She did that,
The first 911 call related to the murder was received at 11:25 p.m. on June 22, 2013.7 Ricardo’s cell phone records showed that at 11:27 and 11:34 p.m. that night, his phone was near the Dogwood Apartments. The records also showed that between noon and 9:00 p.m. on June 22, Ricardo’s phone made or received 82 calls, including 13 with Thomas’s phone and 10 with Brown’s phone. In the hours leading up to the murder – between 9:00 p.m. and 11:23 p.m. – Ricardo’s phone made or received 53 more calls, including 18 with Thomas’s phone and five with Brown’s phone. The call at 11:23 p.m. was made by Ricardo’s phone to Thomas’s phone but lasted zero seconds. The next and final call between their phones that night was a call Thomas’s phone made to Ricardo’s phone at 11:34 p.m.; it lasted one minute and five seconds.8 No evidence was presented
On November 18, 2013, about five months after the murder, Thomas was arrested at a gas station in Carrollton. Numerous vehicles driven by law enforcement officers from the Carrollton Police Department, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, and the United States Marshals Service followed Thomas into the gаs station and tried to box in his car. Thomas began to drive away, hitting a pedestrian in the process. Officers then rammed Thomas’s car and arrested him.10
Thomas did not testify at his trial. His defense was that the State’s case rested on Ricardo’s accomplice testimony, which had not been sufficiently corroborated.11 Thomas was ultimately convicted of
The Motion for New Trial Proceeding
2. In his motion for new trial as amended, Thomas alleged that the State violated his right to due process under Brady by not disclosing a deal between the State and Glenn. He also argued that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support his conviction because Ricardo’s testimony was not sufficiently corroborated as required by
At the hearing, Thomas also introduced into evidence a certified copy of a motion to nolle prosequi Glenn’s shoplifting charge, which was filed by the Carroll County District Attorney and granted by Glenn’s trial court on July 31, 2017, about a month and a half after Thomas’s trial. The reason given for the requested nolle prosequi was “contacted by Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. Ms. Glenn testified for the State in a murder сase. Asked for the nolle prosequi.”
Abbate testified as follows. He was put on Thomas’s case four or five days before trial.16 He spoke to Glenn only once before trial,
One of Thomas’s trial attorneys testified as follows. She was aware that Glenn had a pending shoplifting charge, but believed that it was a misdemeanor charge. She did not remember having Glenn’s GCIC report and did not ask if the State had promised Glenn any help with the shoplifting charge because she did not think that Glenn would be called as a witness. She attempted to confirm that belief by getting in touch with Glenn, but “in the trial, [Glenn] stopped answering my text messages and stopped answering my phone calls. . . . [A]nd so I did not ask her if she had gotten any promises from the State for assistance with her criminal case.”
Based on this evidence and the evidence presented at trial, the trial court ruled that the State had offered to help Glenn with her pending felony charge in exchange for her testimony against Thomas and that the State’s failure to disclose this deal violated due process under Brady. Thus, the court granted Thomas’s motion for a new trial. The court also held that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to support Thomas’s convictions.
3. It is well-established that
“[t]he suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.” Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. [at 87]. This includes the suppression of impeachment evidence that may be used to challengе the credibility of a witness. See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154-155 (92 SCt 763, 31 LE2d 104) (1972).
Danforth v. Chapman, 297 Ga. 29, 29 (771 SE2d 886) (2015). Thus, “[t]he [S]tate is under a duty to reveal any agreement, even an informal one, with a witness concerning criminal charges pending against that witness[.]” Gonnella v. State, 286 Ga. 211, 214 (686 SE2d 644) (2009) (citations and punctuation omitted).
“To prevail on a Brady claim, a defendant must show that the State possessed evidence favorable to the defendant; [the] defendant did not possess the evidence nor could he obtain it himself with any reasonable diligence; the prosecution suppressed the favorable evidence; and had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, a reasonable probability exists that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different.”
Id. at 215 (citation omitted).
(a) The State argues that the first Brady requirement was not met because the trial court erred in finding that the State promised to help Glenn with her pending felony shoplifting charge in order to secure her testimony. In making this finding, the court specifically credited Glenn’s testimony that the State offered to help her, although the court did not credit her implication that the State asked her to give untruthful testimony. The court also relied on
(2) evidence [that Glenn] was uncooperative with the State shortly before trial, (3) evidence that around the time Glenn started cooperating with the State, she
became unresponsive to the сommunications of [Thomas’s] trial counsel, (4) the contradictory testimony of the assistant district attorney who tried the case regarding his knowledge of Glenn’s criminal history18 and (5) the Carroll County prosecutor’s motion to nolle pross Glenn’s felony shoplifting charge, indicating he was acting per the request of the Fulton County District Attorney’s office.
The thrust of the State’s argument is that the trial court should have credited Abbate’s testimony and should have drawn inferences in the State’s favor. For example, the State asserts as to the court’s fourth point that Abbate did not give contradictory testimony about his knowledge of Glenn’s criminal history because he testified that “we turned over the GCIC” and the court should infer that “we” did not include Abbate, who claimed that he was not put on Thomas’s case until a few days before trial. However, the trial court was entitled to disbelieve Abbate’s testimony about when he was
(b) We turn next to the second Brady requirement – that the defendant did not possess the favorable evidence and could not obtain it himself with reasonable diligence. It is undisputed that, if the State had a deal with Glenn as the trial court found, the State had evidence of it and Thomas did not. Thomas filed a pretrial motion asking the State to disclose any deals it offered to witnesses, but the State never informed Thomas of its deal with Glenn.
The State argues that Thomas nevertheless could have obtained evidence of the deal through reasonable diligence by asking Glenn. Because, as the trial court found, Glenn stopped respоnding
(c) Finally, the State argues that Thomas has not met Brady‘s materiality requirement that there be a reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different if the State‘s deal with Glenn had been disclosed. “A ‘reasonable probability’ of a different result is . . . shown when the government‘s evidentiary suppression ‘undermines confidence in the outcome оf the trial.‘” Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434 (115 SCt 1555, 131 LE2d 490) (1995) (citation omitted). See also Jones v. Medlin, 302 Ga. 555, 557-558 (807 SE2d 849) (2017). This test mirrors the test for determining if a lawyer‘s deficient performance caused prejudice for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. See Debelbot v. State, 308 Ga. 165, 166-167 (839 SE2d 513) (2020). In this analysis, we review the record de novo and weigh the evidence as we would expect reasonable jurors to have done, rather than viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdicts. See id. at 168 n.6.
As outlined in Division 1 above, the evidence of Thomas‘s guilt came almost entirely from Ricardo‘s accomplice testimony, and there was much to impeach the story that Ricardo told the jury at trial. He was a convicted felon, as well as a drug dealer who connected Thomas with Brown. Ricardo initially told the lead detective a completely different story of the events leаding to Brown‘s death, which did not include Thomas, and switched to a version that was generally consistent with his trial testimony only
Reasonable jurors therefore would have been looking for corroboration of Thomas‘s involvement in the murder, and they were instructed in accordance with
(1) glass from the victim‘s Escalade found at the Dogwood
Apartment[s]; (2) the medical examiner‘s evidence, (3) ballistic evidence, (4) Melvin Thomas‘[s] testimony, (5) Ricardo‘s cell phone records that place him near the vicinity of the shooting when it occurred, (6) Ricardo‘s cell phone records reflecting he and [Thomas] were in constant communication on the day of the shooting and in the time frame immediately around thе shooting, (7) Glenn‘s testimony, and (8) [Thomas‘s] attempt to flee arrest.
The trial court correctly explained that the first three pieces of evidence and the phone records showing Ricardo‘s location did not corroborate his testimony that Thomas committed the murder because this evidence, although largely consistent with Ricardo‘s testimony about where and how the shooting occurred, did not indicate who the shooter was or even put Thomas at the scene. See Crawford v. State, 294 Ga. 898, 901 (757 SE2d 102) (2014) (explaining that corroborating evidence must “either directly connect the defendant with the crime or justify an inference that he is guilty,” meaning that “corroboration of only the chronology and details of the crimes is not sufficient, and there must be some independent evidence tending to show that the defendant himself was a participant in the crimes“).
While noting that the phone records showing Thomas‘s and Ricardо‘s many communications in the hours before the murder were corroborative, the trial court also recognized that “Glenn‘s testimony could be viewed as the most significant piece of
Dеspite this significant role, the trial court noted, Glenn “faced no cross-examination regarding her inducements to testify.” In fact, Thomas‘s counsel did not ask Glenn any questions on cross-examination. The State argues that Glenn was nevertheless seriously impeached by her admission on direct examination that she had filed a false police report and lied to her insurance company about how her Altima was damaged. But there was no indication that Glenn had been investigated, much less charged, for those false
By contrast, if the State had disclosed its deal with Glenn, Thomas‘s counsel wоuld have had a powerful tool to undermine Glenn‘s credibility by showing that she was motivated to implicate Thomas untruthfully by the State‘s promise to make her pending felony charge “go away.” See Gonella, 286 Ga. at 215 (“By failing to provide Gonnella with a crucial detail regarding [the witness‘s] plea agreement, the State deprived Gonnella of the ability to impeach [the witness] by demonstrating a motive for him to lie[.]“). Given Ricardo‘s shaky credibility and the overall weakness of the corroborating evidence of Thomas‘s participation in the crimes, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the jurors had heard this impeaching evidence. See id. at 216. See also Dinning v. State, 266 Ga. 694, 696-698 (470 SE2d 431) (1996) (holding that the State‘s failure to disclose its offer
Case No. S21X0325 (Thomas‘s Cross-Appeal)
In his cross-appeal, Thomas argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions because Ricardo‘s testimony was not sufficiently corroborated. Unlike in the Brady materiality analysis we just conducted, when we evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain Thomas‘s convictions, “we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, draw every reasonable inference from the evidence that is favorable to the verdict, ignore any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence, assume that the jury reasonably believed every word of testimony favorable to the verdict and reasonably disbelieved every word unfavorable to it.” Debelbot, 308 Ga. at 168 n.6. Viewed in this light, Ricardo‘s testimony alone was sufficient to support Thomas‘s convictions as a matter of due process under the federal constitution. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
As we have noted above, however, under Georgia statutory law, because the evidence indicated that Ricardo was Thomas‘s accomplice in the charged crimes, Ricardo‘s testimony had to be corroborated. See
Although as discussed above in Division 3 (c), the trial court recognized the weakness of much of the corroborating evidence (and the fact that half of the asserted examples of evidence on which the State relied were not at all corroborative of Thomas‘s guilt), the
This Court has explained that “in considering sufficiency [of the corroboration of an accomplice‘s testimony], we ‘must consider all the evidence admitted by the trial court, regardless of whether that evidence was admitted erroneously.‘” Raines, 304 Ga. at 588 (citing Cowart v. State, 294 Ga. 333, 343 (751 SE2d 399) (2013)). Under this principle, it would make little sense for us to ignore Glenn‘s testimony – which was properly admitted – because information that would have impeached that testimony was withheld by the State and not admitted. The question of how the
Glenn‘s testimony along with Melvin‘s testimony, the cell phone records showing Ricardo‘s extensive communications with Thomas on the day of the murder, and Thomas‘s attempt to flee arrest collectively constituted at least “slight” corroborating evidence of Ricardo‘s accomplice testimony, thereby satisfying
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Notes
Thomas filed a timely motion for new trial, which he amended with new counsel in July 2018 and again two more times in November 2019. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the motion in September 2020. The State then filed a timely notice of appeal, and Thomas filed a timely notice of cross-appeal. The cases were docketed to the term of this Court beginning in December 2020 and were orally argued on February 2, 2021.
The assistant district attorney who tried the case testified that he was not aware of the pending charge against Glenn at the time of [Thomas]’s trial; however, he also testified that he had given a copy of Glenn’s GCIC to [Thomas’s] defense counsel and they had a discussion about Glenn’s criminal history. The Court is not persuaded that this prosecutor was unaware of Glenn’s criminal history and pending charge when he sought her testimony.
The “impeachment evidence” to which the trial court referred, however, appears to be evidence of Glenn‘s pending charge, which trial counsel could have discovered by reviewing Glenn‘s GCIC report. In its order, the trial court did not expressly consider whether Thomas could have discovered the State‘s deal with Glenn through reasonable diligence, but the conclusion that he could not is implicit in the court‘s holding that Thomas demonstrated that the State committed a due process violation under Brady.Without diminishing the import of the State‘s failure [to disclose the deal], the Court also notes [Thomas‘s] trial counsel misunderstood the nature of Glenn‘s pending charges, thinking Glenn was facing a misdemeanor, not a felony. The Court finds [Thomas‘s] trial counsel could have likely discovered the impeachment evidence if [she] had better investigated and accurately understood Glenn‘s criminal history.