Benson v. State

• Citation: 294 Ga. 618,754 S.E.2d 23
• Decision Date: 21 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. S13A1504.,S13A1504.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Parties: BENSON v. The STATE.

294 Ga. 618
754 S.E.2d 23

BENSON
v.
The STATE.

No. S13A1504.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Jan. 21, 2014.

[754 S.E.2d 25]

David Shepherd West, David West & Associates, Marietta, for appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Atty. Gen., Benjamin Henry Pierman, Asst. Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Department of Law, Layla Hinton Zon, Dist. Atty., Office of the District Attorney, Candice Leigh Branche, Asst. Dist. Atty., Alcovy Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, for appellee.

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

Appellant Franklin Benson appeals his convictions for malice murder and other crimes relating to the death of Leslyan Williams.¹ On appeal, he contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions, that the trial court erred in closing the courtroom during voir dire, and that his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance. Because these issues are without merit or are procedurally barred, we affirm his convictions.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial showed the following: Appellant and the victim became romantically involved in 2007, and appellant began spending several nights a week at a home that the victim had purchased in DeKalb County. The victim had family and friends with whom she regularly communicated; was in apparent good health; held a job; was remodeling her home so that she could start a catering business there; and regularly worked in her yard.

[754 S.E.2d 26]

Appellant, who operated an automobile repair business near the victim's home, was having financial difficulties with that business in 2007 and had borrowed over $10,000 from the victim. On the morning of Saturday, October 27, 2007, both appellant's sister, Cassandra, and the victim's sister called the victim to wish her a happy birthday. The victim told them that appellant was taking her to a casino in Mississippi for the weekend, and she told her sister, with whom she frequently spoke, that she would call her on Monday. Appellant and the victim, however, did not go to Mississippi.

Around noon on October 28, 2007, appellant and the victim had a domestic dispute over the money that appellant had borrowed from the victim. The police responded to the victim's home, but, because no violence had occurred, the police left after questioning appellant and the victim. About 6:00 p.m. on October 28, appellant called his bank to check on his account, which was overdrawn. At 7:32 p.m. that day, the victim's credit card was swiped on the credit card machine at appellant's business. Whoever swiped the card attempted to transfer $7,500 from the victim's account, but the bank declined the transfer because the amount exceeded the transfer limit on the card.

On Monday morning, October 29, the victim was scheduled to meet with Cassandra to go to a job fair. The victim, however, did not meet with Cassandra and did not answer her cell phone. The victim also did not call her sister, as she had promised to do. Appellant did not start work at his regular hour that Monday and could not be reached on his cell phone.

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, October 30, human body parts were found scattered around a secluded, wooded area near a house owned by appellant in Newton County. A coroner examined the remains and determined that the cause of death was homicide by unknown cause. It was not until November 9, 2007, that law enforcement officials identified the body parts as belonging to the victim. Meanwhile, appellant never reported her missing, began moving out of her house on November 3, and told conflicting stories about her disappearance and his activities around that time.

He also told law enforcement officers that the victim was selling drugs from her house, and he asked another sister, Jennifer, to tell officers the same thing. Jennifer, however, would not do so, because it was not true, and the victim's friends and family said that she had never sold drugs. Moreover, appellant asked Jennifer to tell law enforcement officers that he never lived with the victim.

A white, powdered substance that the police found in the victim's house turned out to be sheetrock powder. In addition, about 8:00 a.m. on October 29, 2007, a video camera at a hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, recorded appellant towing the victim's car into the hotel parking lot and leaving it. The victim's car keys were later found at appellant's business.

On appeal, appellant contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions because the State did not prove malice or the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt. We disagree.

The State, of course, must prove malice beyond a reasonable doubt to convict someone of malice murder. See OCGA § 16–5–1(a) (“A person commits the offense of murder when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being.”). “Express malice is that deliberate intention unlawfully to take the life of another human being which is manifested by external circumstances capable of proof. Malice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.” Id. at (b). “ ‘It is for a jury to determine from all the facts and circumstances whether a killing is intentional and malicious.’ ” Shaw v. State, 292 Ga. 871, 872, 742 S.E.2d 707 (2013) (citation omitted). And “it is for the jury, not appellate judges, to ‘resolve conflicts in the evidence and to determine the credibility of witnesses, and the resolution of such conflicts adversely to the defendant does not render the evidence insufficient.’ ” Butler v. State, 292 Ga. 400, 402, 738...