Bell v. State
| Decision Date | 06 May 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 29709,29709 |
| Citation | 216 S.E.2d 279,234 Ga. 473 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Glen Mack BELL v. The STATE. |
Weiner & Bazemore, Paul S. Weiner, Jonesboro, for appellant.
William Ison, Dist. Atty., Watson, Brown, Foster & Keller, Robert E. Keller, Jonesboro, for appellee.
Syllabus Opinion by the Court
Bell appeals from his conviction and life sentence for the July 5, 1972 armed robbery of Joyce Berry, an attendant in a convenience store on Riverdale Road in Clayton County, Georgia. The robber escaped with $812.12. Approximately an hour later, Bell was apprehended by police in the course of robbing another convenience store, this one on Allison Court in Atlanta, Georgia. Bell was apprehended before obtaining any money from the Allison Court robbery, but his automobile was found to contain a large amount of cash. Subsequently, the Riverdale Road victims positively identified Bell as the robber in the first incident.
At Bell's trial for the Riverdale Road robbery many of the State's witnesses and exhibits referred to the Allison Court episode over Bell's objections. On this appeal he raises 48 enumerations of error.
1. Enumerations 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13, 32 and 33 allege error in overruling Bell's motions for mistrial or to strike on grounds that the State's evidence of the Allison Court crime had wrongly placed his character in issue and was irrelevant to the Riverdale Road crime for which he was being tried. This evidence was properly admitted as part of the res gestae and to show the motive, scheme, design, method of operation, identity, and subsequently the apprehension of the appellant. The similarities between the 'Allison Court' crime and the 'Riverdale Road' crime included the fact that one occurred only an hour after the other; the same type store that is, a convenience food store, was the target of each robbery attempt; there were similar descriptions of the perpetrators' characteristics including clothing (which provided the clue that resulted in the positive identification of Bell by the 'Riverdale Road' crime victims); and each robber possessed a large pistol and an automobile. Additionally, the evidence showed Bell's failure to obtain any money from the 'Allison Court' store whereas a large sum of money was recovered from his car and was subsequently returned to an agent-employee of the Riverdale Road store. The enumerations are without merit. Davis v. State, 233 Ga. 638, 212 S.E.2d 814; Irving v. State, 233 Ga. 353, 211 S.E.2d 309; Hunt v. State, 233 Ga. 329, 211 S.E.2d 288; Payne v. State, 233 Ga. 294, 210 S.E.2d 775.
2. Enumerations 24 and 25 relate to the in-court identification of the...
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