Barrett v. State

• Citation: 733 S.E.2d 304,292 Ga. 160
• Decision Date: 15 October 2012
• Docket Number: No. S12P0710.,S12P0710.
• Parties: BARRETT v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

292 Ga. 160
733 S.E.2d 304

BARRETT
v.
The STATE.

No. S12P0710.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Oct. 15, 2012.

[733 S.E.2d 307]

John Richard Martin, Sandra Louise Michaels, Martin Brothers, P.C., Atlanta, Christopher Michael Foss, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellant.

Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Dana Elizabeth Weinberger, Asst. Atty. Gen., Department of Law, William Jeffrey Langley, Dist. Atty., for appellee.

Brian Kammer, Georgia Resource Center, Richard A. Malone, Prosecuting Attorney's Council, Atlanta, for other party.

HINES, Justice.

[292 Ga. 160]A jury convicted Winston Clay Barrett of malice murder and related crimes and recommended a death sentence for the murder after finding beyond a reasonable doubt the following statutory aggravating circumstances: the murder was committed while Barrett was engaged in the commission of an aggravated battery, and the murder was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture and an aggravated battery to the victim before his death and manifested the defendant's depravity of mind.¹ See OCGA §§ 17–10–30(b)(2), (7);

[733 S.E.2d 308]

17–10–31(a). The trial court denied Barrett's motion for new trial, and he appeals. For the reasons set forth below, this Court affirms.

1. The evidence showed the following. At approximately 5:30 a.m. on August 4, 2002, two Towns County deputy sheriffs drove through [292 Ga. 161]Clay Barrett's neighborhood in Hiawassee after receiving a 911 call reporting that gunshots had been fired in the vicinity. When one of the deputies saw a light at Barrett's residence, they stopped to investigate and discovered the body of Danny “Stumpy” Youngblood outside the home lying face-up in a pool of blood with “obvious brain matter” lying beside him. Youngblood, who was 5' 7? tall and weighed 204 pounds, had been pistol-whipped and badly beaten, had a large gunshot wound to the back of his head, and had a severe wound to his right eye. Barrett, who is 6' 7? tall and weighed 250 pounds at the time of the crimes, was inside the home sitting in a reclining chair watching television. When one of the deputies came to the doorway, Barrett told him, “I just shot a man. I just shot Stumpy.” The deputy inquired about a weapon, and Barrett told him that it was outside. When the deputy asked Barrett exactly where outside the weapon was located, Barrett lifted his left leg, displayed a nine-millimeter pistol, and tossed it onto the chair beside him. When additional law enforcement personnel arrived, Barrett refused their request that he move outside in order for them to conduct their investigation. As the officers assisted him out of his chair, they discovered that Barrett had a holster attached to his right side that contained a loaded .357 revolver, which was later determined to be the weapon that killed Youngblood.

Jeanine Barrett testified that on August 4, 2002, she and Barrett had been married for approximately one year and that she had met Youngblood only one time prior to the weekend that the shooting occurred. According to her testimony, the following events preceded Youngblood's death. The previous day, she placed Barrett's .357 revolver in a pocket of his reclining chair after finding it lying on a bed in their home. At approximately 9:00 p.m., she and her 13–year–old son were driving home when they saw Barrett and Youngblood together in Youngblood's truck headed away from the Barretts' residence. She stopped and briefly spoke to them. Youngblood was driving, and both he and Barrett appeared to be intoxicated. At approximately midnight, Ms. Barrett returned her son to his grandmother's home in Gwinnett County where he lived, and when she returned home approximately four hours later, she found Barrett and Youngblood asleep in reclining chairs. She lay down on a bed in the same room, as the home consisted of only one large room and a bathroom.

At approximately 5:00 a.m., Ms. Barrett heard Barrett get up and stagger around the room until he found the bathroom, went in, and closed the door. Almost immediately, Youngblood awoke. Moaning and groaning, he stumbled around the room and then urinated on the television and floor. Ms. Barrett yelled at him that he was not in [292 Ga. 162]the bathroom. Youngblood staggered toward the bathroom but stopped at the door and started to lower his pants. Thinking that he was about to defecate on the bed, Ms. Barrett yelled again and pushed Youngblood, who then tried to lie down beside her. Ms. Barrett told him that her husband had put a mattress on the floor for him to lie down on, and then she got up from the bed and started yelling at him to leave. She opened the home's only exterior door and pushed Youngblood toward it, but when she got him to the door, he stopped and said, “No, no, I'm here with Clay. I don't have to.”

[733 S.E.2d 309]

Youngblood continued to stumble around the room, and Ms. Barrett “rant [ed] and rav[ed]” trying to get him to leave. She finally kicked the bathroom door to get her husband's attention. Youngblood “balled up” his fist and said, “F--- you, b----,” but Ms. Barrett explained that he only clenched his fist and did not draw it back as if he intended to strike her, that he was not threatening to her, and that she did not feel threatened by him. In response, Barrett came out of the bathroom in a rage, grabbed Youngblood, and pushed him toward the door, cursing and demanding that he leave. Youngblood repeatedly said, “No, Clay,” and stopped himself in the doorway. The more he resisted, the angrier Barrett became, and Ms. Barrett told both of them to leave.

Then Youngblood sat down on the corner of the bed, lowered his head, and shook it, saying, “Oh, Clay, I didn't know.” Barrett pulled him off the bed and started hitting him. Youngblood did not resist or fight back, and Barrett “just started throwing him around like a rag doll.” Barrett threw Youngblood out the door, and Ms. Barrett heard a lot of “oh's” and “banging around” in the gravel drive outside. Barrett threw Youngblood back inside the residence and onto the floor, hitting him repeatedly with his fists and his nine-millimeter pistol. Both Youngblood and Ms. Barrett begged Barrett to stop, but Barrett pulled Youngblood up and threw him out the door and then back into the residence again, still beating him and slamming his head on the floor, on the table, and under the television. Then Barrett jumped on top of Youngblood and sat on his stomach, straddling him. When Ms. Barrett saw that Youngblood's head looked like it was “split from one side to the other in a couple of places” and that he was bleeding from his head, his mouth, and his nose, she begged Barrett to “stop it” and to “let him go” before he killed Youngblood, whom she described as helpless and “out of it.” Instead, Barrett remained on top of Youngblood, looked at his wife, and then “reared back with his hand way up,” “jabbed it down in [Youngblood's] eye,” and “ramm[ed] his finger like he was trying to ram his hand through [Youngblood's] eye socket.” When she saw “blood squirt[ ] up yea high,” Ms. Barrett went to get help, as the Barretts had no telephone. As she was driving her [292 Ga. 163]car out of the drive, she saw Youngblood stagger to the door and then saw Barrett grab him at both shoulders and yank him back inside. When Ms. Barrett returned with Davis Sutton, Barrett's long-time friend, Youngblood was lying dead between his truck and the residence.

Barrett, who also testified at trial, described the events preceding Youngblood's death as follows. Youngblood came to his home in the late afternoon of August 3, 2002, “agitated” and “angry” as the result of a recent altercation involving his girlfriend and his cousin. Barrett refused Youngblood's request to borrow a gun in order “to go shoot these people.” The two men went target shooting with Barrett's nine-millimeter pistol instead. Later, they met Ms. Barrett on the road as she was coming home and they were leaving to buy some beer at a convenience store, which they consumed en route to a bar in Helen, where they each consumed more alcohol. They returned to the Barretts' home at approximately midnight and fell asleep in reclining chairs. Sometime later, Barrett woke up when he thought he heard a gunshot. Youngblood was in the middle of the room with Barrett's nine-millimeter pistol in his hand, and the door to the home was open. Barrett told Youngblood to give him the gun and to go back to sleep.

Barrett awoke and went to the bathroom at approximately 5:00 a.m. When he heard Youngblood and his wife arguing, he came out of the bathroom and tried to calm down an “agitated” Youngblood by telling him: “It's okay. Don't worry about it. Just go on home.” When Youngblood would not leave, Barrett asked Ms. Barrett to “go call the police,” but Youngblood blocked the doorway and refused to let Ms. Barrett out. Barrett and Youngblood began shoving each other, the shoves turned into blows, and a fistfight erupted. Barrett claimed that Youngblood was attempting to strike him with a ceramic wind chime when he kicked it out of Youngblood's hand, retrieved it, and hit Youngblood over the head with it. He also claimed that Youngblood threatened to kill him and was attempting to pick up Barrett's loaded .357

[733 S.E.2d 310]

revolver, which he alleged was lying on the floor, when he struck Youngblood once “[n]ot real hard” on the side of the head with the nine-millimeter pistol. During the melee, Ms. Barrett managed to get out the door, and when Barrett heard an automobile crank up, he assumed that she was going to a pay phone to call the police.

Once Barrett “finally got [Youngblood] out of the house to stay,” he went inside and sat in his chair, where he watched Youngblood through the open doorway as he sat on the porch facing Barrett. After “a little lull,” Barrett said, “Stumpy, go get in your truck and leave, ... or I'll have to shoot you.” It appeared to...