Bettis v. State
| Decision Date | 02 November 2020 |
| Docket Number | A20A1387 |
| Citation | 851 S.E.2d 158,357 Ga.App. 587 |
| Parties | BETTIS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Clifford Louis Kurlander, for Appellant.
Natalie S. Paine, District Attorney, Joshua B. Smith, Assistant District Attorney, for Appellee.
In this 2015 retrial case,1 a Richmond County jury found Roger Bettis guilty of two counts of aggravated assault, one count of criminal attempt to commit rape, one count of kidnapping, and one count of possession of a knife during the commission of a crime, and the trial court sentenced Bettis to 95 years’ imprisonment. Bettis appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial, arguing that (1) the trial court violated his confrontation rights by admitting an expert witness’ out-of-court statements and test results; (2) the evidence was insufficient to support his kidnapping conviction; and (3) the trial court denied him the opportunity to be present at sentencing. For the reasons that follow, we affirm Bettis’ convictions, but we vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts,2 the evidence adduced at trial showed that on June 3, 2009, Martha Seago was visiting her husband who was hospitalized at a local hospital when she decided to use the restroom. As Seago used the restroom in the first stall, someone entered the restroom and went into the stall next to her. Seago leaned down to look under the stall to ensure that the person was a woman and saw that the person was wearing shoes that did not appear to be women's shoes. Seago testified that the shoes were "real big" and appeared to be black tennis shoes. When Seago again leaned down to look under the stall, she began to panic after noticing that the person had left the stall. A man then came over the top of the stall, got on top of Seago, put his arm around her, and began to choke her until she passed out. Seago later awoke to discover that she had been lying on the floor and that the lower half of her body was unclothed. As a result of the attack, Seago lost four teeth, her jaw was dislocated, and she sustained trauma to her neck which required her to undergo multiple surgeries. Seago sustained lacerations to her lip
and above one of her eyes, and she also sustained bruises over her body. Seago testified that she did not see her attacker's face, but she described him as a black male.
Following Seago's attack that day, Tammie Kates, who had been at the same hospital as Seago, went to the restroom to get a paper towel. After entering the restroom, Kates heard "a moaning noise" and walked to the corner of the restroom and met a man "face to face," whom she identified as Bettis. When Kates began to retreat, Bettis reached around her and held the bathroom door shut so that she could not leave. Kates began to scream, and Bettis brandished a knife and told her to stop screaming or else he would cut and kill her. Bettis then directed Kates to the last stall in the bathroom and held the knife toward her as he followed her to the stall. After reaching the stall, Bettis told Kates to shut the door of the stall. After a few minutes, Kates called out to Bettis and asked whether she could come out of the stall but she did not get a response. Kates then exited the stall and looked toward the first stall and saw a person and blood on the floor, and then she ran to get help for Seago.
An officer with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office responded to the scene and observed bloody toilet tissue in the doorway to the restroom where Seago was attacked. The officer observed more bloody tissue at the entrance of the first stall, and he also observed blood smears on the floor, on the wall, and on the toilet tissue dispenser. A wet, bloody rag was also found on the floor near the front of the stall, and more wet tissue was found on top of the toilet bowl along with white underwear found underneath the toilet bowl. Hair was also found on the toilet and the floor. A security operations supervisor at the hospital extracted photographs and video footage from the hospital's security systems that depicted the suspect walking around inside the hospital.3 An investigator from the Richmond County Sheriff's Office obtained the footage, distributed the footage to the media, and Bettis was later determined to be a suspect in the crimes.
Linda Bettis, Bettis’ mother, testified that Bettis was staying with her in June 2009, and that her daughter called her and told her to turn on her television. When she turned on her television, she saw images of someone who looked liked Bettis walking down the hallway of the hospital. Linda also received phone calls from other family members and nonfamily members telling her that they had seen Bettis on television following the attack. The police later came to Linda's home and took some of Bettis’ clothing for forensic testing.
Cynthia Seguin, an assistant manager for the forensic biology section of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation ("GBI"), testified that she had worked with Connie Pickens in GBI's forensic biology section prior to Pickens’ death in 2014 and that she had conducted peer reviews of Pickens’ test results and conclusions pertaining to the clothing retrieved from Linda's home. During Seguin's testimony, she was given a copy of the transcript of Pickens’ testimony at Bettis’ 2010 trial, and she read Pickens’ testimony from that trial to the jury. The testimony revealed that Pickens conducted testing on Bettis’ shorts, and that DNA found on the shorts matched Seago's DNA. Seguin also testified that she was the peer-reviewer for Pickens’ work in Bettis’ case and that she also agreed with Pickens’ conclusion.
Bettis was subsequently indicted on two counts of aggravated assault ( OCGA § 16-5-21 ), one count of criminal attempt to commit rape ( OCGA § 16-4-1 ), one count of kidnapping ( OCGA § 16-5-40 ), and one count of possession of a knife during the commission of a crime ( OCGA § 16-11-106 ). Bettis elected to represent himself at his retrial, and the trial court appointed standby counsel to assist Bettis. After the retrial, a jury again convicted Bettis on all counts, and the trial court sentenced him to 95 years’ imprisonment. Bettis filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied after a hearing. This appeal followed.
1. First, Bettis argues that the trial court violated his confrontation rights by admitting Pickens’ testimony from Bettis’ 2010 trial into evidence at trial. We conclude that, even if the trial court erred in admitting this evidence, Bettis cannot show that he is entitled to any relief on this claim.
As a preliminary matter, we note the parties dispute whether this issue was preserved for appellate review. Pretermitting whether Bettis’ objection was preserved, we determine that even if this issue had been preserved for appellate review and the trial court erred in admitting Pickens’ testimony, Bettis cannot show harmful error. See McCord v. State , 305 Ga. 318, 321 (2) (a), 825 S.E.2d 122 (2019) () (citation and punctuation omitted). During trial, Seguin testified that she peer-reviewed Pickens’ work in Bettis’ case. Seguin described the peer review process as follows:
[W]hen a scientist is completed with their testing and they have issued a report that case is assigned to another qualified scientist which means they have to be qualified to do the exact same testing and be experts in their field as well. They will review all of the notes that the other scientist, the original working scientist performed, to make sure that all steps were done correctly and within policy. And they will review the report and conclusions that were generated from that initial[ ] scientist. They then have to agree with those reports, those results, in order to release the reports to the customers.
Seguin further testified that she reviewed all of Pickens’ notes and results from the testing that was conducted in Bettis’ case and that she "independently" agreed with Pickens’ conclusions. Specifically, Seguin testified that, in order for her to conclude that the DNA on Bettis’ clothing matched Seago's DNA, the DNA on Bettis’ clothing would have to match all of the places on Seago's DNA profile and that the match between the DNA on Bettis’ clothing and Seago's DNA was a "perfect match." Although Bettis briefly mentions Seguin's testimony in his brief, he does not otherwise challenge the admission of Seguin's testimony on appeal.4 Therefore, even if the trial court erred in admitting Pickens’ 2010 trial testimony, the testimony was merely cumulative of Seguin's testimony, and thus Bettis cannot show any harm from the trial court's alleged error in admitting Pickens’ testimony. See McCord , supra, 305 Ga. at 322 (2) (a) (i), 825 S.E.2d 122 (). Accordingly, Bettis is not entitled to any relief on this claim.
2. Next, Bettis argues that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his kidnapping conviction because the State failed to show sufficient evidence of asportation as to Kates. We disagree and conclude that the evidence was sufficient to show asportation to sustain Bettis’ kidnapping conviction.5
On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence. An appellate court neither weighs the evidence nor determines witness credibility, but rather determines only whether...
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