Walker v. StateWalker v. State
Appellants Robert Walker and Tasha Flowers were tried together and convictеd of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony following a drive-by shooting into a bar in Columbus, Georgia. On appeal, Walker contends only that the trial court erred in failing to give the complete pattern instruction on circumstantial evidence. Flowers contends that the trial court erred in failing to grant her motion for new trial because the jury‘s verdict was against the weight of evidence; in overruling her motion to exclude identification testimony; in failing to give a proper curative instruction regarding a detective‘s testimony; and in failing to grant her motion for mistrial because a witness violated the court‘s pretrial ruling limiting his testimony. We affirm the convictions of both Appellants.1
Carlos‘s cоusin, Robert Walker, and his sister, Latasha Flowers, were at the house. Shortly after Carlos came home, a neighbor, Nicolas Perry, saw two people get into a car parked by the house and drive down the street to the bar. The car stopped in front of the bar, and a patron heard a female voice yell that everyone inside the bar was going to die. The car then turned around, and as it passed the bar again, at least six shots were fired with a 9mm pistol out of the passenger window toward the open doorway of the bar. Stephens, who was sitting on a barstool, was struck under the eye by one of the bullets; he died on the way to the hospital. Perry then saw the car return to the Flowers house, saw Walker and Flowers standing by the сar once it parked, and then heard Walker say something about family business.
Another witness from the neighborhood, Hanalei Kaililaau, had also seen the car drive out of the cul de sac where the Flowers house was located; Kaililaau then heard gunshots and saw the car stopped in front of the bar with smoke coming out of the passenger side. When the cаr returned to the Flowers house moments later, Kaililaau saw Flowers and Walker get out, with Walker holding a gun and saying “we took care of the family, we took care of business.” After Walker was arrested, he bragged to another inmate, Charles Edge, while they were in a holding cell together at the Sheriff‘s Office, that he had killed a man during a drive-by shooting in revenge for a fight.
Flowers argues that the family members and friends who testified on her behalf that she was at a friend‘s house at the time of the shooting were more believable than the witnesses who implicated her in the crimes. That was, however, a matter to be decided by the jury that saw and heard the testimony, not by an appellate court reviewing a transcript. See Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33 (673 SE2d 223) (2009) (” ‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ ” (citation omitted)).
Case No. S14A0882 (Walker v. State)
2. During the charge conference, the trial court said that it would give the “definition of direct and circumstantial evidence” from the pattern jury instructions. The court then instructed the jury as follows:
Evidence under the law may be either direct or circumstantial or both. Evidence may also be used to prove a fact by inference. This is referred to as circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is the proof of facts or circumstances, by direct evidence, from which you may infer other related or connected facts that are reasonable and justified in the light of your experience.
However, as the trial court noted in its order denying Walker‘s motion for new trial, he never made a written request that the court give the entire pattern charge on circumstantial evidence; we also note that the court said at the charge conference only that it would instruct the jury on the definition of circumstantial evidence, not that it would give the entire pattern charge. Absent a written request, a trial court is required to charge on the law of circumstantial evidence as set forth in former
3. Flowers argues first that the trial court erred in denying her motion to exclude identification testimony from Hanalei Kaililaau, because the police showed him only a single photograph of Flowers rather than her photo among photos of other women.
If an out-of-cоurt identification by a witness is suggestive and conducive to a ” ‘very substantial likelihood’ ” of misidentification, evidence of that out-of-court identification violates due process and is inadmissible at trial. Similarly, if the same suggestive out-of-court identification can be said to lead to ” ‘a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification,’ ” an in-court identificatiоn of the defendant would also violate due process and would be inadmissible. With regard to evidence of either the out-of-court or in-court identification, “[i]t is the likelihood of misidentification which violates a defendant‘s right to due process.” In determining whether there is a substantial likelihood of misidentification, the “totality of the circumstances” is to be considered. Under this test,
the factors to be considered in evaluating the likelihood of misidentification include the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of timе between the crime and the confrontation.
Moreover, whether the witness knows the defendant is a critical factor in determining the reliability of an identification.
State v. Hattney, 279 Ga. 88, 89 (610 SE2d 44) (2005) (footnotes omitted).
Applying these standards in Gibson v. State, 283 Ga. 377 (659 SE2d 372) (2008), this Court held that where the witness knew the defendant‘s street and legal names and had known and had regular contact with him for seven years, the trial court did not err in refusing to suppress the witness‘s identification, because “showing [the witness] a single photograph of [the] defendant merely confirmed her previous identification of him” and thus created no substantial likelihood of misidentification. Id. at 379. Similarly, in Leeks v. State, 309 Ga. App. 724 (710 SE2d 908) (2011), the Court of Appeals held that even though the police used a single photograph for identification, there was no substantial likelihood of misidentification because, among other reasons, the witness knew the defendant from the neighborhood. See id. at 726-727. See also Pruitt v. State, 270 Ga. 745, 751-752 (514 SE2d 639) (1999) (holding that there was no substantial likelihood of misidentification even though the witness may have been subjected to an impermissibly suggestive photo lineup, since the witness testified that she recognized the defendant as a regular customer at her store).
Here, Kaililaau testified that, before identifying Flowers‘s рhoto, he had lived down the street from her for 11 years and had spent a lot of time with the Flowers family; he went to school with Flowers‘s sister and knew what Flowers looked like. Kaililaau went to the Flowers house right after the shooting, and she walked past him as she got out of the car used in the drive-by shooting. Kaililaau gave Flowers‘s first and last name to the police, who only then shоwed him her photo to confirm that he was in fact referring to Flowers. Under these circumstances, the presentation to the witness of a single photograph of the defendant created no substantial likelihood of misidentification, and the trial court correctly denied the motion to exclude the witness‘s identification testimony. See Gibson, 283 Ga. at 378-379.
4. Flowers argues next that the trial court erred in failing to give a proper curative instruction regarding a detective‘s improper testimony. At trial, the detective was asked if he “ever [made] an arrest in the case involving Carlos, the beating?” He replied, “Because once I established that Mr. Robert Walker and Latasha Flowers were the persons that conducted this drive-by shooting of the Intеrlude Club —.” Flowers interrupted with an objection, arguing that the answer was an improper conclusion and asking the court to strike the answer and give a limiting instruction to the jury. The court sustained the objection and instructed the jury, “You may disregard, jury, please, the conclusion made by the officer about what he established.” Flowers did not take exception to the court‘s curаtive action, and her acquiescence in it waives any claim of error on appeal. See Jeffers v. State, 290 Ga. 311, 315 (721 SE2d 86) (2012). In any event, given the sustaining of Flowers‘s objection, the prompt curative instruction for the jury to disregard the detective‘s non-responsive and conclusory statement, and the testimony the jury heard from other witnesses establishing Flowers‘s role in the drive-by shooting, we would find nо harmful error with respect to this enumeration.
5. Before trial, Flowers moved to exclude as hearsay any testimony by Charles Edge, the inmate who had been locked up with
Flowers then moved for a mistrial based on violation of the pretrial ruling and objected on the ground of hearsay. The trial court denied the motion for mistrial but instructed the jury to disregard Edge‘s statement, saying:
Members of this Jury, during a portion of the testimony on direct examination of this witness on the witness stand some remark was made by him where he said something to the effеct that he was told that a lady was driving the car. I instruct you, Members of this Jury, that you may not consider that testimony in connection with this case. You shall disregard that portion of his answer. You will give it no weight whatsoever in your consideration of the evidence in this case.
Flowers made clear that she was preserving her motion for mistrial, and on appeal she argues that thе trial court erred in failing to grant it.
” ‘Whether to grant a motion for mistrial is within the trial court‘s sound discretion, and the trial court‘s exercise of that discretion will not be disturbed on appeal unless a mistrial is essential to preserve the defendant‘s right to a fair trial.’ ” Watson v. State, 289 Ga. 39, 42 (709 SE2d 2) (2011) (citation omitted). Here, there is no indication that the prosecutor intended to elicit the fleeting testimony at issuе; the witness never identified the “lady” and never mentioned Flowers at all; the court immediately gave the jury a strong curative instruction; and there was substantial other evidence that Flowers was driving the car during the drive-by shooting. Under these circumstances, a mistrial was not essential to preserve Flowers‘s right to a fair trial, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying her motion. Sеe Jones v. State, 277 Ga. 36, 40 (586 SE2d 224) (2003) (holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Notes
еxtended delays in proceedings on motions for new trial “put at risk the rights of defendants and crime victims and the validity of convictions obtained after a full trial,” and . . . “it is the duty of all those involved in the criminal justice system, including trial courts and prosecutors as well as defense counsel and defendants, to ensure that the appropriate post-conviction motions are filed, litigated, and decided without unnecessary delay.”Arnold v. State, 292 Ga. 268, 273 & n. 5 (737 SE2d 98) (2013) (citation omitted). “Nevertheless, any failure to discharge that duty in this case ‘does not affect the outcome of this appeal . . . because [Appellants have] enumerated no error associated with the delay.’ ” Id. (citation omitted).
[t]he decision to grant a new trial on the grounds that the verdict is strongly against the evidence is one that is solely in the discretion of the trial court. . . . Whether an appellant is asking this court to review a [trial] court‘s refusal to grant a new trial or its refusal to grant a motion fоr directed verdict, this court can only review the case under the standard espoused in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979) to determine if the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, supports the verdict.Batten v. State, 295 Ga. 442, 444 (761 SE2d 70) (2014) (citation omitted).