Appellant Zerrick Breion Walker was convicted of the malice murder of Ronaldo Lorenzo Hill and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
1. The State presented evidence that Ronaldo Lorenzo Hill was shot by a man who entered the barbershop where Hill worked, spoke with Hill, walked away from Hill toward the door of the shop, and turned and fired a gun at Hill while leaving the shop. The assailant fired a second shot at the barbershop from outside, and then fled the scene in a waiting white Ford F150 pickup truck. Another barber in the shop at the time of the shooting recognized the shooter as a somewhat regular customer whose hair the victim had cut recently. At trial, the barber and a customer identified appellant as the man who shot the victim, and another customer identified a photo of appellant taken on the day of the shooting as a photo of the shooter. On the day of the shooting, the white Ford pickup truck in which the assailant arrived and departed was parked in such a way as to block the vehicle of an insurance claims investigator examining a car in the parking lot adjacent to the barbershop. The claims investigator identified appellant as the man who exited the pickup truck from the passenger side, leaving the door open; entered the barbershop, after which the witness heard a gunshot; displayed a stainless steel revolver pistol as he exited the barbershop; fired a shot at the barbershop from outside; and re-entered the passenger side of the pickup truck, which drove off. The claims investigator used a cellular phone to call for emergency assistance and gave the dispatcher a description of appellant and the white pickup truck, including its license tag number. It was stopped by police shortly thereafter. The victim of the shooting was transported to the hospital where, after undergoing four surgical procedures, he died seventeen days later. The witnesses inside the barbershop testified that the victim did not have a gun and made no threatening moves toward appellant; the insurance claims investigator testified that no one from the barbershop chased appellant as he left the shop.
The above-summarized evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Jackson v. Virginia,
When faced with a motion for new trial based on these general grounds, the trial court has the duty to exercise its discretion and weigh the evidence. Mills v. State,
Judgment vacated and case remanded.
Notes
The victim was shot at his place of employment on March 21, 2001, and died seventeen days later from complications of the gunshot wounds. Appellant was arrested on the day of the shooting and was charged in a true bill of indictment returned by the Fulton County grand jury on February 13, 2004, with malice murder, felony murder (with aggravated assault as the predicate felony), aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and trafficking in cocaine. The last charge was dead-docketed, and appellant’s trial, which took place August 29-September 8, 2005, resulted in the jury’s return of guilty verdicts on the remaining four counts. Appellant was sentenced to life imprisonment for the malice murder conviction and to a five-year term for possessing a firearm during the commission of the felony, to be served consecutively to the sentence of life imprisonment. The felony murder conviction was vacated by operation of law, and the aggravated assault conviction merged as a matter of fact into the malice murder conviction. See Malcolm v. State,
We reiterate an observation we made in Manuel v. State, supra,