Baxter v. State
| Decision Date | 03 July 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 41747,41747 |
| Citation | 254 Ga. 538,331 S.E.2d 561 |
| Parties | BAXTER v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
E. Byron Smith, Dist. Atty., Barnesville, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., J. Michael Davis, Atlanta, for the State.
Norman Darnell Baxter was convicted in Henry County for the murder of Katherine Around 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 5, 1980, June Moore left her parent's house in McDonough to return to her room at the Safari Inn in Henry County. Her family became concerned when she did not appear at the Safari Inn pool the next day to meet them as planned. When they could not locate her on July 7, they filed a missing persons report with the police.
June Moore. He was sentenced to death. This case is here on direct appeal for review under the Unified Appeal Procedure (252 Ga. A-13 et seq.) and for sentence review required by OCGA § 17-10-35. 1 We affirm
On July 13, tourists found her nude, partially decomposed body in a wooded area to the west of the Safari Inn. Her hands and feet were bound, and a ligature was tied around her throat. She had been strangled.
Hunters found her car deep in the woods near the Safari Inn on October 14, 1980. The car had been partially stripped. Ms. Moore's parents determined that her diamond ring, her .22 caliber pistol, her hot curler case, and a red dress were missing from her car and her room.
Appellant and his ex-wife, Kathy Walker, spent the Fourth of July weekend of 1980 at the Safari Inn. She testified that they returned to their room from an evening out sometime between midnight and 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, July 6. She recalled that appellant left the room shortly after their return, stating that he saw a "money making thing" in the parking lot.
According to her further testimony, appellant returned to the room just after dawn. He smelled terrible and was extremely dirty and sweaty. He brought with him a red dress, a solitaire diamond ring, a hot curler case, a scarf, a small pistol, and some bullets for the pistol. He claimed that he had stolen the objects from the trunk of a car in the parking lot.
She and appellant immediately left the Safari Inn and spent the next few days at motels along I-75 south of Atlanta. Appellant's abusive behavior finally drove her to flee as he paid the bill at an Omlette Shoppe. On her way to refuge at her grandmother's house in Newton County, she threw the pistol, the scarf, and the dress in a dumpster near Porterdale. Appellant, shortly thereafter, sold a ring to the Money Tree Pawn Shop. 2
In late July or August of 1980, appellant took two of his acquaintances and one of his brothers to see a Ford Futura that matched the description of the victim's car. They testified that appellant had hidden the car deep in the woods near the Safari Inn. At trial, they described with particularity certain items that police had found in the car.
Two of appellant's fellow inmates in the Chatham County Jail testified that appellant had told them that he had choked a woman to death in Atlanta or "North Georgia." A fellow inmate in the Henry County Jail testified that appellant claimed to have strangled a girl at the Safari Inn during a drug deal. According to this inmate, appellant reported that he sold the victim's drugs and bought his wife a white Cadillac with the proceeds.
1. In his first, second, and thirty-first enumerations of error, appellant raises the general grounds. We find the evidence sufficient to support the jury's verdict. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. In his third, fourth, and fifth enumerations, appellant charges that the trial court erred in refusing to grant him funds (a) The trial court appointed two attorneys to represent appellant in this case in January, 1983. The case came to trial in September, 1983. Wilson v. State, 250 Ga. 630, 634, 300 S.E.2d 640 (1983). We find no error here.
to hire investigators and expert witnesses. "[t]he general rule is that the grant or denial of a motion for assistance of expert witnesses and other investigative services lies within the sound discretion of the trial court." Castell v. State, 250 Ga. 776, 783, 301 S.E.2d 234 (1983).
(b) The trial court denied appellant's request for funds to hire demographic experts and psychologists to assist him in his challenge to the grand jury selection and jury qualification, and medical experts to assist him in analyzing the physical evidence. While the appropriation of such funds may be authorized under OCGA § 17-12-5, in light of the testimony actually produced as to the grand jury and jury qualification questions, and the nature of the expert testimony produced by the state regarding the time of the victim's death, we find no abuse of discretion in the denial of appellant's motion for funds to hire experts. Patterson v. State, 239 Ga. 409, 412, 238 S.E.2d 2 (1977).
3. In his sixth, eleventh, eighteenth, twenty-third, and thirty-fifth enumerations of error, appellant claims that the trial court and the state refused to give him exculpatory or favorable information upon request in violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).
(a) Appellant initially claims that the trial court erred in refusing to force the state to provide him with updated rap sheets for its witnesses. At a hearing on this motion, the district attorney stated, We find no error. Keller v. State, 253 Ga. 512, 513, 322 S.E.2d 243 (1984). 3
(b) Appellant next contends that the trial court's refusal to provide him with summaries of Kathy Walker's pre-trial statements violated Brady, supra, as they differed substantially from her testimony at trial. Appellant asserts specifically that before trial she made no mention of appellant's referral to a "money making thing" in the parking lot of the Safari Inn on the night of the murder. Appellant claims that this new statement provided the jury with grounds for finding an aggravating circumstance, and was particularly harmful in light of Walker's refusal to talk with his attorneys.
In her pre-trial statements, Kathy Walker stated that appellant had simply told her that he was leaving the room for awhile. The testimony regarding appellant's referral to a "money making thing" appears to be an addition to her pre-trial statements. This addition does not, however, create an inconsistency in her testimony. Throughout her involvement with the investigation, Walker maintained that appellant claimed to have stolen the goods in question from the trunk of a car. As the trial court found, this is consistent with the testimony as to the "money making thing." 4 We find no inconsistency and no error. Roberts v. State, 243 Ga. 604, 605, 255 S.E.2d 689 (1979).
4. The state refused to respond to appellant's request for Walker's address. The district attorney advised her that appellant's While the state, in most instances, should provide a defendant with the telephone numbers and addresses of its witnesses, this was not required. Roberts, supra, at 606, 255 S.E.2d 689. 5 Here, there was ample evidence of appellant's violent behavior towards the witness to justify the state's decision to withhold the information from appellant. In addition, Walker was not required to speak with appellant's attorneys if she did not so desire. Dover v. State, 250 Ga. 209, 296 S.E.2d 710 (1982). The district attorney merely informed her of that right. 6 We find no error.
attorneys wished to speak with her, but that she did not have to speak with them if she did not wish to do so. In his seventh and twelfth enumerations, appellant claims that the state, in effect, discouraged Walker from talking with appellant's attorneys, thereby severely hampering appellant's investigation of the case.
5. Appellant, in enumerations eight and nine, asserts that the trial court erred in refusing to provide him with a daily transcript of the day's testimony, and in refusing to allow him to submit a jury questionnaire to prospective jurors prior to voir dire.
(a) We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's refusal to provide appellant with a daily transcript. Nunnally v. State, 235 Ga. 693, 699, 221 S.E.2d 547 (1975).
(b) The control of voir dire lies within the discretion of the trial court. Waters v. State, 248 Ga. 355, 363, 283 S.E.2d 238 (1981). We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's refusal to allow the submission of the jury questionnaire prior to trial.
6. Appellant claims, in his tenth enumeration, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress.
On March 25, 1983, a detective for the Henry County Police and a Henry County Assistant District Attorney interviewed appellant at the Chatham County Jail, where he was being held on charges unrelated to the Moore murder. Appellant had requested the interview with the hope that his help in the Moore case would cause the Chatham County authorities to be lenient with him. At the interview, he described Moore's car as it had been found, and he claimed to know more about the crime. Appellant's Savannah attorney was aware of the interview and had planned to attend, but he did not appear at the interview.
In early October, the assistant district attorney requested a follow-up interview with appellant. He interviewed appellant in the presence of his Savannah attorney on October 7, 1983. At the interview, appellant...
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