Bass v. State

• Decision Date: 30 November 2007
• Docket Number: No. A07A1519.,A07A1519.
• Citation: Bass v. State, 655 S.E.2d 303, 288 Ga.App. 690 (Ga. App. 2007)
• Parties: BASS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

655 S.E.2d 303

288 Ga.App. 690

BASS v.The STATE.

No. A07A1519.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

November 30, 2007.

Brian Steel, Atlanta, for Appellant.

Charles M. Ferguson, Dist. Atty., for Appellee.

MIKELL, Judge.

A jury convicted Ronald Bass of 24 counts, including robbery, simple battery, and numerous property crimes, all of which concerned individuals who had participated in procuring a court order for the removal of 12 dogs from his residential property.The trial court sentenced him to a total of 40 years to serve.Following the denial of his amended motion for new trial, Bass appeals, raising several enumerations of error, including that the state failed to prove venue and that the trial court erred in rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.Finding no basis for reversal, we affirm.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows that Bass and his family moved from Chicago, Illinois, to Cuthbert, Georgia, in 1993 and soon began housing stray dogs on their residential property.By the spring of 1997, the dogs numbered about 15, and Bass's neighbors had become annoyed by what they considered excessive barking and noxious odors coming from Bass's property.In April of that year, Jane Miller, who lived in Atlanta with her husband and whose children and grandchild owned a house next door to Bass, mailed Bass a letter complaining about the dog situation and asking him to remedy it.Miller received no reply to that letter nor to a follow-up letter; therefore, she and her husband called Bass about the matter.During their telephone conversation, Bass became hostile, advised the Millers that what was going on in Cuthbert was none of their business, and recommended to Miller's husband, "You should keep better control of your wife.If she wants a cause she should stay in Atlanta and clean up the Chattahoochee River."

In May, Miller went to Bass's home and hand-delivered to him another letter, again complaining about the dogs and imploring him to reduce their number to three or less.This letter was signed by Miller and others, including the following property owners in Bass's neighborhood: William Miller(who was Jane Miller's son and part owner of the property); Anne Moshell; Martha Riley; Dan Harris and his wife, Sheryl Harris; and Floyd Goff.During their encounter that day, Bass said to Miller:

[D]id you find out — from anybody in town that I was born and raised in Chicago?I'm a Yankee....And the last time a Yankee came down to Georgia and tore up, he did a pretty darn good job of it.Up in Atlanta you might remember, he was called William T. Sherman.

Miller left, considering Bass's words a threat.

Later that month, a petition to abate a private nuisance was filed in municipal court complaining of incessant noise and intolerable odor caused by Bass's 15 dogs.The petition was signed by Jane and William Miller, Moshell, Riley, the Harrises, Goff, and others.At a hearing thereon, at which Bass was present, there was testimony in support of the petition by Jane and William Miller, Moshell, Riley, Dan Harris, and Goff.The municipal court thereafter ruled that Bass was maintaining a nuisance upon his property by housing 15 dogs and ordered him to remove 12 of them by September 30, 1997, or subject himself to contempt sanctions.The order was issued on July 25, 1997, and Bass filed a notice of appeal to the superior court.

Within days of the municipal court order, a rash of fires began that destroyed all the buildings on the property owned by Miller's relatives.In July, their house burned; in August, their barn-type storage shed burned; and in September, their garage burned.Thereafter, twice in October and again in November, trees growing on their property were cut down without their permission.

An arson investigator with the Georgia State Fire Marshal's Arson Unit investigated what was left of the burned buildings.In his expert opinion, the fires had been intentionally set.Upon learning about the cut trees, he returned to the property and determined that markings left on them were consistent with the use of a bow saw.

The evidence at trial showed that Bass had purchased a bow saw at some time after the house burned and later sent his mother-in-law into a local hardware store to buy another bow saw for him.

In December 1997, Miller noted that Bass had not complied with the municipal court order.She testified that, as she was taking pictures that month of the dogs on Bass's property, Bass spotted her, grabbed her camera from her, beat it upon a tree until it broke apart, and "snatched" her (then 73 years old), causing her to fall to the ground.

That same month, Bass's appeal to the superior court was dismissed for failure to file a petition for writ of certiorari.His application for discretionary appeal from that dismissal was denied by this court.The following month, March 1998, the municipal court issued an order finding Bass in contempt, ordering the chief of police to impound all but three of Bass's dogs, and imposing upon Bass a contempt fine and impound costs.The dogs were thereafter removed, as ordered, from Bass's property.

Starting that same month, a wave of crimes were perpetrated upon the vehicles of individuals who had signed the nuisance petition and then testified against Bass.In each instance, the vehicle damaged was parked at the respective owner's home, which was in Bass's neighborhood.

March 14 The four tires on Moshell's car were flattened and "666" was scratched on the side of her car during the night.

April 6 The four tires of Riley's car were flattened during the night.

April 6 The eight tires on Dan and Sheryl Harris's car and truck were flattened.

April 6 The four tires on Goff's truck were flattened and "666" was scratched onto the side of the truck.

April 23 The four tires on Riley's car were flattened again.

April 23 The four tires on Goff's truck were flattened again.

According to a tire shop owner who examined and then replaced some of the flattened tires, each tire had been "damaged the same way, with holes through the side where you couldn't patch them."

Moshell's next door neighbor testified that, at about 2:00 on the morning Moshell's car was vandalized, he saw a man walk alone down Moshell's driveway.The neighbor testified that he did not see the man's face, but observed that the man had the same gait, size, and general appearance as a man he had seen occasionally walking a dog on his street.The neighbor testified that, during that time, he did not know the name of the man who sometimes walked a dog, but the county sheriff, Gary Wilson, later identified the man to him as "Ronald Bass."

On April 23, Wilson went to Goff's house in response to a complaint about flattened tires.He investigated the vehicle there and also the one at Riley's house.Wilson summoned a canine handler with the Georgia Department of Corrections and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) for assistance.

The canine handler investigated the scene around Riley's car with a human-tracking bloodhound dog.He testified that the dog had picked up a human scent at the car and tracked it to the back steps of the house next door.Likewise, Wilson testified that the dog went "through the hedge row between Mr. Bass's house and Ms. Riley's yard" toward Bass's house.Wilson and an agent of the GBI who had arrived in response to Wilson's summon followed the dog and its handler to the house next door.It was Bass's home.The sheriff and the agent explained to Bass their presence.Bass named his wife and son as the only other occupants at that time.

Five days later, on April 28, officers from the sheriff's office, the Georgia State Fire Marshal's Arson Unit, and the GBI executed a search warrant upon Bass's residence.The search yielded two bow saws.

Bass testified that his family started keeping dogs at their residence around 1994 and that a letter from Miller was the first complaint he received about them.He recalled, "I was more frustrated than anything else because I couldn't understand how somebody that, you know, doesn't live somewhere can come and start basically wanting to order you what to do and what you can and can't do in your own back yard."He explained that his remark to Miller referencing William T. Sherman was not a threat of any property damage, but only a warning that "I was going to fight her."As background for that remark, he described his lifelong interest in Civil War history and stated that, on the day Miller appeared with the letter, he had been working on a presentation about Sherman's March to the Sea.

Bass testified that his attorney in the municipal court matter had advised him that he stood little chance of prevailing, but he chose to fight the nuisance action because he strongly believed that he had a constitutional right to keep his dogs on his private property.He testified that he was not angry, but "frustrated" by his neighbors' testimony at the hearing on the nuisance petition.

Bass denied any involvement in the fires underlying the arson charges; he and his wife testified that he had been at home when the fires started.He also denied cutting down the trees and damaging the vehicles.Further, Bass testified that his December 1997 altercation with Miller had erupted only after she refused his demands to leave his property and stop taking pictures of him and his residence.He testified that he did not put his hands on her, did not take her camera from her, and did not smash the camera.

Bass was indicted for 24 charges and twice tried by jury in Randolph County.The jury in his first trial found him guilty only of committing simple battery upon Miller.That trial ended with a hung jury on the remaining 23 charges.Sentencing on the simple battery charge was withheld until the conclusion of Bass's second trial.

The jury at Bass's second trial, the trial underlying this appeal, returned guilty verdicts...