Blige v. State
| Decision Date | 28 January 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. A93A2605,A93A2605 |
| Citation | 211 Ga.App. 771,440 S.E.2d 521 |
| Parties | BLIGE v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Willie T. Yancey, Jr., Savannah, for appellant.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., Dist. Atty., David T. Lock, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Prince Leon Blige was tried and convicted of rape and burglary. The victim testified at trial that on November 14, 1990, at about 3:00 a.m. she was asleep on the couch at her residence and was awakened by a man standing over her who was touching her. He told her to get off the couch and led her into the bedroom where he raped her. She later identified Blige as her assailant.
An expert witness testified that a DNA sample taken from semen removed from the victim matched that of DNA found in Blige's blood. Another expert witness testified that the probability of selecting an unrelated individual of the population from the same race who had a matching genetic profile as Blige was one in eight million.
The victim from a prior attempted rape involving Blige also testified.
1. In his first enumeration of error, Blige claims the trial court erred in denying his motion for a change of venue based on negative publicity which he had received. He claimed that his trial was unfair because of negative publicity both he and his family had received from the local news.
A hearing was held, during which several news directors of local television stations testified. The first, David Winstrom, testified that he had presented numerous stories about Nathaniel Blige, appellant's brother, but had not presented any stories regarding Prince Blige.
Douglas Weathers, another news director, testified next. He stated that he had presented three stories on three of the Blige brothers. He recalled that a story ran regarding one of Prince Blige's brothers who cut off a lady's finger. Weathers also recalled that a story was presented regarding the fact that all of the brothers were involved in criminal activity.
Weathers stated that there were also stories regarding Prince Blige. He recalled a statement a judge of recorders' court had made with respect to a charge against Prince Blige for shoplifting, in July 1990, that he was not going to set bond for Prince Blige because he was "sick and tired of these Blige brothers coming before him one after the other in criminal activities." That statement was the subject of a story the station ran.
Mark Taylor, a third news director testified. He stated that his station had presented two stories on Prince Blige, one of which included the recorders' court judge's statement.
A writer for the Savannah newspaper, Jan Skutch, was also called as a witness. He recalled stories regarding the Blige brothers. He testified that one story involving Prince Blige was entitled "Jury Indicts the Meanest Blige in the Rape of a Pregnant Woman." He recalled that several stories had run regarding the different Blige brothers and the crimes they had committed.
The trial court denied Blige's motion; in its order doing so, the court stated that after hearing the evidence and after the individual voir dire of 62 prospective jurors:
Here, Blige claims that the trial court erred in denying his motion in that he could not receive a fair trial in Chatham County because of his family name. He argues that the jury was not impartial and that his Sixth Amendment rights were violated.
Lemley v. State, 258 Ga. 554, 556, 372 S.E.2d 421 (1988). The trial court did not err in finding that there was no inherently prejudicial situation in this matter. "There [was] no evidence of a total inundation of the judicial process by the media at this trial." (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Chancey, supra, 256 Ga. at 430, 349 S.E.2d 717.
The second prong of the two-part test is to consider evidence of actual prejudice on jurors on voir dire. Blige failed to include a transcript of the voir dire in the record and thus failed to meet his burden of showing error. See McKenzie v. State, 188 Ga.App. 571, 572-573(2), 373 S.E.2d 830 (1988). Moreover, assuming arguendo that this contention was not waived, we find no error in the trial court's conclusion that no actual prejudice existed so as to mandate a change of venue. See Chancey, supra. We find no abuse of the trial court's discretion in this case. Berryhill, supra, 249 Ga. at 445, 291 S.E.2d 685.
2. In his second enumeration of error, Blige contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion in limine which sought to exclude evidence regarding deoxyribonucleic acid ("DNA") of semen samples taken from the victim which matched the profile of DNA in a sample of Blige's blood. Blige claims that the same procedure was used for calculating as in Caldwell v. State, 260 Ga. 278, 393 S.E.2d 436 (1990), and that such conclusion was based on an unreliable data base. He claims that the expert witness here did not adhere to the statistical requirements outlined in Caldwell.
This argument is without merit. Prior to the jury hearing evidence regarding the probability statistics, Dr. Baird the director of forensic and paternity at Life Codes Corporation testified. He stated that no significant changes in the presentation of calculations had been made at Life Codes since Caldwell. He stated that the calculated frequency of...
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