Adkins v. State

• Decision Date: 23 August 2022
• Docket Number: S22A0796
• Citation: 314 Ga. 477,877 S.E.2d 582
• Parties: ADKINS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

314 Ga. 477

877 S.E.2d 582

ADKINS

v.The STATE.

S22A0796

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: August 23, 2022

Jonathon Justin Majeske, The Issa Law Firm, P.C., 66 Lenox Pointe NE, Atlanta, Georgia 30324, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Kathleen Leona McCanless, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Deborah Gonzalez, District Attorney, Samuel Richard d'Entremont, Deputy Chief A.D.A., Western Circuit District Attorney's Office, 325 E. Washington Street, Athens, Georgia 30601, for Appellee.

Bethel, Justice.

After a jury trial, Marion Adkins, Jr., was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Latisha Gresham. He appeals, contending that the circumstantial evidence presented at trial failed to exclude all other reasonable hypotheses, such as the commission of the crime by some unknown assailant or Gresham's possible suicide, and was therefore insufficient to support his conviction. Adkins also argues that the trial court erred by not instructing the jury on "grave suspicion."¹ We disagree with both contentions and affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. In January 2019, Adkins was living in a house in Athens-Clarke County. Adkins and Gresham were in an on-and-off romantic relationship, and Gresham was a frequent houseguest of Adkins.

On January 25, Clarence Willis, Jr., Adkins's cousin, was at Adkins's residence with Adkins, Gresham, and Jabrea Lewis drinking and smoking. Willis had been staying with Adkins since late November 2018. This gathering lasted from around 7:30 p.m. until after 9:00 p.m., when Willis was picked up for work by Derrick Jones.

Willis testified that, as he was leaving for work, he thought he saw Adkins hit Lewis but that Adkins was probably "swinging trying to touch her" in an attempt "to get her attention or something like that." Willis told Adkins he thought Adkins was being disrespectful, which caused a "slight argument" between Willis and Adkins on the front porch. During the argument, Willis tried to punch Adkins. After this altercation, which lasted two or three minutes, Gresham told Willis that she was afraid that when Willis left, Adkins would "do something to her." Willis told Gresham that she did not have to stay there and that Lewis would take her wherever she wanted to go.

Gresham then went inside to get her bag. Lewis went to her car and was waiting outside for Gresham as Willis left. Adkins went back inside after Gresham and shut the front door. Willis and Jones left. Lewis testified that Gresham never came back out before Lewis left. Adkins's sister, Marian Adkins, testified that Willis called her and said that Adkins's behavior toward Lewis was concerning and someone needed to "get him."

Willis worked until early in the morning and returned to the residence around 5:00 a.m. He was unable to get in the residence because he had given his key to Adkins the previous evening. Willis called his cousin and Adkins's older sister, Aretha Ballard, and Ballard let him inside the residence. Once inside, Ballard warmed up her coffee in the kitchen, glanced down the hallway toward Adkins's room, saw a person lying in the hallway, and thought that it might be Gresham. Willis testified that Ballard said, "Look, Clarence, Junior^{[2 ]} must have done put her out the room again." Ballard testified that she was not alarmed by this because she had seen Gresham sleeping on the floor, living room couch, or out on a couch on the screened-in porch before. Ballard called out to Adkins saying "Junior, Junior," and Adkins responded that he was asleep.

Ballard left the house, and Willis fell asleep on the couch by the front door for about two-and-a-half hours. When Willis awoke, he noticed Gresham was still lying in the same spot where he and Ballard had seen her earlier that morning. Willis tried to rouse Gresham by asking her to get up, but Gresham did not respond. Willis used the restroom, came out into the hallway, and tried to move Gresham. It was dark in the hallway, and as Willis reached for Gresham, he felt a bag over her body. Willis then turned on a light and saw blood everywhere and a gun lying on the floor near Gresham. Following this discovery, Willis yelled out "Junior, Junior," but got no response. At 8:21 a.m., Willis walked out of the house with his cell phone and called 911.

When the police arrived, they found Gresham's body outside the closed bedroom door where Willis had found her. Gresham's body was outside the room and less than five feet from Adkins's bed. There was partially coagulated blood around Gresham's body, and it appeared that rigor mortis had set in. Gresham was lying on her stomach with her forehead facing down. A plastic bag was covering Gresham's head and part of her upper body, and a gun was on the ground beside her.

Adkins eventually emerged from his bedroom fully dressed and claimed that he had been sleeping. Adkins had not answered when police first arrived and announced their presence, and an officer testified that Adkins's bed did not appear to have been used recently. The police took Adkins into custody.

At trial, a detective testified that he did not observe any sign of forced entry at the residence. The State introduced a photograph of the residence showing a closed side door, which was the only other door to the residence. The photographs showed that the side door appeared to be blocked by the back of a chair. In conjunction with the introduction of the photograph, the detective testified that the photograph depicted the side door as he saw it when he arrived. Another officer testified that the front window of the house had some broken glass and a "small hole," but also testified that it did not look like anyone had entered the residence through the area of broken glass.

The detective testified that, based on his 23 years of experience and working between 50 to 75 suicides involving firearms, Gresham did not die by suicide. The detective estimated that Gresham had been dead "well over" four hours, putting her time of death around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.

The medical examiner testified that the manner of Gresham's death was homicide and that the cause of her death was a gunshot wound to the head. The medical examiner determined that the bullet traveled from the front to the back of the head and very minimally right to left. The wound was not an impact wound that typically would have been self-inflicted. The medical examiner further testified that the gun appeared to have been fired from a range of six inches to three feet based on the lack of soot around the wound and the presence of stippling. There was no exit wound, and the medical examiner recovered a bullet, in fragments, from Gresham's body. On cross-examination, the medical examiner conceded that it was "potentially possible" that Gresham's death was a suicide but said that it was unlikely. The gun found next to Gresham's body was determined to have fired the fatal bullet.

Cherry Jackson, Gresham's older cousin with whom Gresham had a mother-daughter relationship, got several calls from Gresham either late at night on January 25 or in the early morning of January 26. During the final call around 2:00 a.m., Gresham said, "Mom, I'm okay; don't worry about me," and "Oh, I'm in the closet; here Junior come," before hanging up the phone. Jackson testified that she was very concerned at the time due to the history of frequent calls when Gresham and Adkins would "get into it." Jackson testified, however, that she did not call 911 and did not investigate further because it was late, and her grandson advised against getting involved.

2. Adkins first argues that the evidence presented against him at trial was entirely circumstantial and failed to exclude other reasonable hypotheses aside from his guilt, and was therefore insufficient as a matter of Georgia law. In particular, Adkins argues that there was no direct evidence linking him to the murder or establishing that he was even present when Gresham died. Adkins further argues that the State failed to eliminate the possibility that someone else entered the residence at the time of Gresham's death or that Gresham committed suicide. Adkins's contentions lack merit.

Under OCGA § 24-14-6, "[t]o warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused."

Whether an alternative hypothesis is reasonable or whether the circumstantial evidence excludes every reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt is generally a question left to the jury, and this Court will not disturb that finding unless it is insupportable as a matter of law.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Tyler v. State , 311 Ga. 727, 731 (2), 859 S.E.2d 73 (2021). Moreover,

it was for the jury to determine the credibility of witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence. Likewise, it was for the jury to decide whether the defense theory ... was reasonable and not excluded by the other evidence.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Bamberg v. State , 308 Ga. 340, 343 (1) (a), 839 S.E.2d 640 (2020).

Adkins also argues that the State did not produce forensic evidence from the crime scene that directly linked him to Gresham's death. However, that does not mean the evidence presented was insufficient. "[T]he State is required to prove its case with competent evidence, [but] there is no requirement that it prove its case with any particular sort of evidence." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Rich v. State , 307 Ga. 757, 759 (1) (a), 838 S.E.2d 255 (2020). See also Garay v. State , 314 Ga. 16, 21 (2), 875 S.E.2d 631 (2022) (same).

Even though there was...