313 S.E.2d 103 (Ga. 1984), 40549, Jones v. State

• Citation: 313 S.E.2d 103,252 Ga. 385
• Docket Number: 40549.
• Date: 14 March 1984
• Parties: JONES v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 103

313 S.E.2d 103 (Ga. 1984)

252 Ga. 385

JONES

v.

The STATE.

No. 40549.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 14, 1984

Rehearing Denied March 29, 1984.

H. Thaxton Monk, Jr., Ben L. Bateman, Camilla, for Henry ross jones.

J. Brown Moseley, Dist. Atty., Bainbridge, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., for the State.

HILL, Chief Justice.

This is another murder case growing out of a domestic situation. Henry Ross Jones was convicted by a jury of the shotgun murder of Sarah Adkins Denard, his housemate for over two years. He was sentenced to life and now appeals. ¹

Because there were four eyewitnesses who testified as to the shooting, the evidence supports the verdict and we set out the facts in abbreviated form. The jury was authorized to find that the defendant and victim had been separated for about a week when, on March 23, 1983, while the defendant was carrying a newly purchased shotgun and riding with two friends, he asked the driver of the car to stop because he saw the victim parked in the Thunderbird he had bought [252 Ga. 386] for her. His friend parked, with a van between his car and the victim's. The defendant got out and walked around the van to the victim's window and asked her to get out and talk to him. When she refused, he went back around the van to the car, picked up the shotgun, returned to the victim's car and shot at the victim through the closed window, wounding the victim in the left hip. Then, as she and the other occupants (2 women and 2 children) were scrambling out the other side of the car, the defendant walked around the back of the Thunderbird and shot the victim in the neck, killing her. The defendant then ran to his father's house where he hid the gun and later turned himself in at the sheriff's office.

1. The defendant asks us to reexamine and overrule our holdings that after

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indictment and conviction, the failure to provide a commitment hearing under OCGA § 17-4-26 (Code Ann. § 27-210) is not reversible error. See State v. Middlebrooks, 236 Ga. 52, 222 S.E.2d 343 (1976). We decline to do so in this case because a commitment hearing was held, albeit after indictment. We find no reversible error here.

2. In his next enumeration, the defendant asserts error in the admission, over his objection, of photographs of the partially nude victim taken at the time of autopsy. In Brown v. State, 250 Ga. 862, 867, 302 S.E.2d 347 (1983), we held: "A photograph which...