SUGGS v. THE STATE
S20A1093
In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: February 15, 2021
BOGGS, Justice.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence at trial showed the following. On the night of February 28-March 1, 2015, Appellant rode with his friend Patrick Pridgen to the Jackpot Club in the Sunset Plaza shopping center in Moultrie. Appellant was wearing black pants and a black and white shirt. At around 1:30 a.m., Appellant got into a fight with Harrison and
As the large crowd spilled into the parking lot, Timothy Davis offered Harrison and Jackson a ride home, and the three men walked to Davis’ car. Tamera Edwards drove up with her boyfriend and parked next to Davis. Harrison was standing between the two cars when gunfire erupted from a 9mm pistol one row over in the parking lot, striking the side of Edwards’ car and shattering her back window. Harrison pulled his own 9mm pistol and returned fire, getting off seven rounds before he was hit in the right upper chest and fell to the ground. The bullet that struck Harrison went through his right lung, windpipe, aorta, and left lung before exiting through his upper left arm. Appellant jumped into a Chevrolet Camaro convertible that his cousin was driving and was dropped off at the Northgate Apartments.
Harrison was pronounced dead at the scene. Law enforcement offiсers recovered two sets of 9mm shell casings from the parking lot
At around 3:00 a.m. on March 1, 2015, Appellant called Pridgen, and Pridgen picked him up at the Northgate Apartments. At Appellant‘s request, Pridgen drove Appellant to Appellant‘s sister‘s house in the Atlanta area, dropping him off at around 6:30 a.m. before driving back to Moultrie. The next day, Appellant called Pridgen, who drove to Atlanta, picked up Appellant, and brought him back to Moultrie. Both on the way up to Atlanta and on the way back to Moultrie, Appellant told Pridgen that he was in the parking lot “ducking and shooting” after the club shut down on the night that Harrison was shot.
On the afternoon of March 3, Kaysha Trim agreed to meet with GBI agents at a cemetery in Moultrie to discuss the shоoting. In an audio-recorded interview, which was later played for the jury, Trim told the agents that she knew Appellant and that she saw Harrison and Jackson beat him up inside the club. Trim said that after the
Later that afternoon, Appellant contacted the GBI to make a stаtement. Appellant told agents that Harrison and Jackson beat him up inside the club and that he passed two police officers on his way out but did not report the fight to them.2 Appellant claimed that he was walking toward Pridgen‘s car when the shooting started, that he ran to the other end of the parking lot, and that someone he did not know picked him up in a black truck and drove him to his ex-girlfriend‘s house, where he stayed in seclusion in a shed in her backyard for the next two days without her knowledge. Appellant said that when he left the shed, he went to his parents’ house, where he was notified that law enforcement was requesting to speak with him. Appellant could not describe the individual who picked him up or the truck (beyond the fact that it was black), he did not know how
On March 5, the GBI received cell phone tower location records for Appellant‘s and Pridgen‘s phones. During an interview with Pridgen, GBI agents confronted him with the records, and Pridgen admitted that he drove Appellant to Atlanta after the shooting and brought him back to Moultrie the next day. Pridgen agreed to go speak with Appеllant and record him with a device provided by the GBI. Shortly after 5:00 p.m., Pridgen went to the home of one of Appellant‘s relatives and spoke to Appellant, who asked Pridgen what he told the GBI and whether the GBI asked him about a gun. Appellant told Pridgen to contact the GBI and say that he lied about taking Appellant to Atlanta after the shooting and that he instead took someone else who had Appellant‘s phone. An audio recording оf the conversation was later played for the jury.
Appellant contends that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his convictions. When viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, however, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient as a matter of constitutional due process to authorize a rational jury to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). See also Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33 (673 SE2d 223) (2009) (“It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnessеs and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.” (citation omitted)).
The trial transcript shows that the court divided the prospective jurors into groups of 12 and sat them in separate locations in the courtroom for voir dire. After the jury had been selected and the remaining prospective jurors were excused, Appellant complained that the court denied him the right to conduct individual voir dire with panels of 12 prospective jurors at a time. The court replied, “You did have that right, sir, you could have done it if you wanted to. They were sitting in panels of 12, if I‘m not mistaken. Is that not true? I intentionally sat them in groups of 12,”
3. Appellant claims that the trial court erred in rejecting his challenge under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (106 SCt 1712, 90 LE2d 69) (1986), to the State‘s peremptory strike of an African-American prospective juror, Juror 33. Batson established a three-step process for evaluating claims of racial discrimination in the use of peremptory strikes:
(1) the opponent of a peremptory challеnge must make a prima facie showing of racial discrimination; (2) the proponent of the strike must then provide a race-neutral explanation for the strike; and (3) the court must decide whether the opponent of the strike has proven [the proponent‘s] discriminatory intent.
Heard v. State, 295 Ga. 559, 566 (761 SE2d 314) (2014) (citation omitted). Appellant‘s Batson claim focuses on step two.
After Appellant raised his Batson challenge, the State explained that it struck Juror 33 because of photographs on her Facebook page that showed her “throwing up gang signs” and with marijuana, which a GBI special agent discovered while looking up all the prospective jurors on Facebook. Appellant argues that the trial court erred in concluding that the State gave a race-neutral explanation for striking Juror 33, because the State‘s explanation was not reasonable or plausible and was not based on Juror 33‘s conduct, mannerisms, or responses during voir dire. However, contrary to Appellant‘s argument, the second step of the Batson process
does not demand an explanation that is persuasive, or even plausible. “At this [second] step of the inquiry, the
issue is the facial validity of the prosecutor‘s explanation. Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor‘s explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral.”
Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765, 768 (115 SCt 1769, 131 LE2d 834) (1995) (citation omitted). Moreover, the reasons for striking prospective jurors need not сome only from voir dire. See Johnson v. State, 302 Ga. 774, 781 (809 SE2d 769) (2018).
The State‘s proffered reason for striking Juror 33 – that she had photographs on her Facebook page showing her making gang signs and with marijuana was race-neutral. See Smith v. State, 264 Ga. 449, 449-451 (448 SE2d 179) (1994) (holding that prospective juror‘s residence in public housing project where gang activity was prevalent was race-neutral explanation for peremptory strike); Franklin v. State, 305 Ga. App. 574, 577 (699 SE2d 868) (2010) (holding that prospective juror‘s involvemеnt with drugs was race-neutral explanation for peremptory strike). Accordingly, Appellant‘s Batson claim fails.
5. Appellant asserts that the trial court erred in admitting 21 crime scene and autopsy photographs, because “[t]he photographs of the bodies at the crime scene were repetitious of others,” and “[t]here were autopsy photographs that . . . showed parts of the body which had no relevance to the crime alleged . . . and were introduced only to inflame the minds оf the jury.” However, more than 60 crime scene and autopsy photographs were admitted without objection at Appellant‘s trial, and Appellant has failed to identify, by citation to the relevant pages in the record, which specific subset of 21 photographs he is challenging, as required by this Court‘s rules. See Supreme Court Rule 19 n.1 (“[F]or briefs, . . . page references to the record (R-) and transcript (T-) are essential.“). Moreover, his descriрtions of what the 21 challenged crime scene and autopsy photographs depict, considered in light of his stated bases for challenging them, are simply too vague to enable this Court to isolate and evaluate the 21 allegedly objectionable
6. Appellant also asserts that the trial court did not follow the proper procedure when receiving a communication from the jury during deliberations, citing Lowery v. State, 282 Ga. 68 (646 SE2d 67) (2007). Lowery requires trial courts to ensure that jury communications are submitted to the court in writing, to mark any written communication as a court exhibit in the presence of counsel, to afford counsel a full opportunity to suggest an appropriate response, and to make counsel aware of the substance of the court‘s
Here, less than two hours into deliberations, the jury sent the court a note that said: “Due to his personal view of evidence presented, one juror feels uncomfortable making a decision based on the evidence present.” The trial transcript shows that the court marked this written jury communication as a court exhibit in the presence of counsel and discussed the note and the court‘s intended response with counsel before bringing in the jury, thereby affording counsel a full opportunity to seek any desired modifications before the jury was recharged.
Appellant does not challenge the substance of the recharge given to the jury in response to the jury note. Instead, he claims that the trial court failed to follow the procedure prescribed by Lowery for handling jury notes. But the record reflects that the trial court
7. Appellant contends that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, pointing to numerous alleged errors by his trial counsel. A defendant‘s claim that his attorney‘s assistance was so inadequate as to require reversal of his conviction must prove both that the attorney‘s performance was professionally deficient and that this deficiency resulted in prejudice to his case. See
(a) Appellant points first to his trial counsel‘s alleged failure to adequately investigate the case. However, Apрellant has not suggested, much less shown, what further investigation would have revealed or how it would have helped his defense. Thus, even if counsel had conducted an inadequate investigation, Appellant has failed to prove the required prejudice. See Long v. State, 309 Ga. 721, 728 (848 SE2d 91) (2020) (holding that in order to establish prejudice from failure to adequately investigate case, defendant must “at least make a proffer as to what additional investigation would have unсovered” (citation omitted)).
(b) Appellant also points to his trial counsel‘s conduct in connection with a plea agreement that Appellant entered into but was later allowed to withdraw. The record shows that on the eve of the scheduled trial, Appellant‘s trial counsel met in chambers with the prosecutor and the judge to discuss a potential plea agreement, and the prosecutor verbally agreed to allоw Appellant to enter a guilty plea to involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder in exchange for the dismissal of the remaining charges. Appellant claims that the prosecutor also agreed that Appellant would be sentenced to time served, and that his trial counsel was constitutionally deficient in failing to get this agreement, with the promise of no additional jail time, reduced to writing.
(c) Finally, in a single paragraph of his ten-page brief, Appellant recites a litany of decisions by his trial counsel that he asserts constituted deficient performance. Appellant contends that his trial counsel was constitutionally deficient in failing to object to the qualifications of two expert witnesses; failing to file “any type” of motion or ask for “any pretrial hearing” regarding software used by one of the expert witnesses; failing to seek funding to hire a firearms expert; failing to object to the admission of the 21 unspecified crime scene and autopsy photographs discussed above; and failing to request that the court reporter transcribe the entirety of voir dire. However, “[s]uch after the fact disagreements about trial counsel‘s approach to the case . . . do not amount to a showing of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.” Armour v. State, 290 Ga. 553, 555-556 (722 SE2d 751) (2012) (citation omitted). Moreover, Appellant has made “nо effort to show that such conduct was the product of anything other than reasonable trial strategy or to
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.