Brantley v. State

• Docket Number: A24A0036
• Decision Date: 29 February 2024
• Citation: 899 S.E.2d 284
• Parties: BRANTLEY v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

899 S.E.2d 284

BRANTLEY

v.The STATE.

A24A0036

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

February 29, 2024

Calvin M. McMullen, Milledgeville, for Appellant.

Tammy Gail Coffey, Tuttle W. Barksdale III, Faith Donnell Worley, for Appellee.

Barnes, Presiding Judge.

Following a jury trial, Ronald Lee Brantley was convicted of two counts of child molestation of his niece.¹On appeal from the denial of his amended motion for new trial, Brantley raises multiple enumerations of error.He contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal; by denying his special demurrer to the indictment; by admitting evidence of other acts of child molestation that the victim testified were committed in Florida; by admitting nude photographs found on his laptop; by excluding statements made by the victim’s grandmother that were recorded on a law enforcement officer’s body camera; by denying his request for a jury charge on sexual battery as a lesser included offense; by instructing the jury on a definition of child molestation that did not conform to the indictment; and by failing to merge his two child molestation convictions for sentencing.For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

Construed in the light most favorable to the verdict,² the evidence showed the following.During the time period in question, H. B., the victim in this case, lived with her grandparents and her two brothers.³The grandparents owned property in Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, and the grandparents and three children divided their time primarily between their Georgia and Florida homes.Their home in Georgia was in Hancock County, and Brantley, who was the children’s uncle, lived in a trailer next to the home on the same property.Brantley sometimes went with the grandparents and children when they traveled to their homes in Florida and North Carolina.

During her fifth grade school year, when H. B. was ten years old, Brantley began touching her inappropriately.Brantley would touch H. B.’s breasts and vagina underneath her clothes when they were together in his trailer, were watching movies in the grandparents’ Georgia home, or were hunting on their Georgia property.According to H. B., Brantley touched her breasts and vagina "[t]oo many [times] to count."Brantley also grabbed H. B.’s hand and forced her to touch his penis on multiple occasions when they were watching movies in the Georgia home.When H. B. was at her grandparents’ home in Florida, Brantley forced her to touch his penis, and, on another occasion there, he held her down on the bed and placed his penis in her vagina.The sexual abuse continued for several years, but H. B. was too seared to tell any adults because Brantley threatened to kill her and her other family members if she did so.

Brantley promised H. B. that if she provided him with nude photographs, "he would leave [her] alone for good."H. B. took nude photographs of herself on an iPad, and Brantley, who owned two Samsung cell phones, took nude photographs of her as well.According to H. B., each photograph taken by Brantley was of "half," not her "full body."Brantley transferred the nude photographs to his laptop, but he continued to sexually abuse H. B.

In July 2019, when H. B. was 15 years old, she disclosed to her boyfriend that Brantley was sexually abusing her.H. B.’s boyfriend told his mother and a family friend about the sexual abuse, and they devised a plan to help H. B. leave home and stay with the boyfriend and his mother.However, when the boyfriend’s mother and the family friend arrived in their truck to pick up H. B. at her house on the night of July 5, 2019, H. B.’s older brother told Brantley that someone was outside the house.Brantley grabbed a gun, and he and the older brother got in a golf cart and pursued the truck until it left the property.Brantley, H. B., and her grandmother then sat down together in the living room, and the grandmother asked H. B. what was going on and why people had come to the house that night.Brantley, who was sitting behind the grandmother on the couch, made a face at H. B. that scared her and led her not to tell her grandmother.

After the plan to help H. B. leave home failed, the boyfriend’s mother and the family friend contacted the police.On July 6, 2019, sheriff’s deputies with the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office went to H. B.’s home.One of the deputies, who was wearing a body camera that recorded the encounter, spoke with H. B. away from her other family members.H. B. recounted to the deputy how Brantley had sexually abused her since the fifth grade and had taken photographs of her.

After the deputy spoke with H. B., he contacted an investigator at the sheriff’s office and drove H. B. to the station.The investigator spoke with H. B. and scheduled a forensic interview for her at a child advocacy center.During the recorded forensic interview, which was conducted on July 8, 2019, H. B. described how Brantley had sexually abused her in Georgia and Florida from fifth grade until shortly before the police were called.

In addition to arranging for the forensic interview, the investigator obtained a search warrant for Brantley’s laptop based on H. B.’s disclosures about the nude photographs.The investigator executed the warrant on July 9, 2019, and after seizing Brantley’s laptop, he handed it over to a certified computer forensic examiner for analysis.The forensic examiner made a copy of the laptop’s hard drive, and he then used a forensic computer program called Magnet Axiom to examine the copied hard drive, after which he validated his results using other computer tools, including a program called Dollar Sign I Parser.In conducting his examination, the forensic examiner determined that the laptop had only one user profile, which was entitled "Ron."Under that user profile, the forensic examiner located several photographs of H. B. in clothes, as well as multiple "closely zoomed-in" photographs of either breasts or a vagina.The forensic examiner determined from the "exit data" associated with the photographs that they had been taken with two Samsung phones, and that 25 of the nude photographs were taken with one of those phones.The forensic examiner also discovered that 24 pictures, comprised of 11 photographs of H. B. and 13 nude photographs of either breasts or a vagina, had been deleted and moved to the laptop’s recycle bin on July 5, 2019.Additionally, the forensic examiner analyzed the search inquiries that had been conducted on the laptop and found evidence of web searches using the search terms "Girl fucks uncle,""Young pussy,""Young teens giving blow jobs," and other similar phrases.

Brantley was arrested and indicted for several crimes, including one count of child molestation for placing H. B.’s hand on his penis and one count of child molestation for placing his finger on H. B.’s vagina.⁴At the ensuing jury trial, H. B. testified to the acts of sexual abuse committed by Brantley as set out above.The State also introduced into evidence and played for the jury the body camera recording of H. B. disclosing the sexual abuse to the sheriff’s deputy, as well as H. B.’s recorded forensic interview in which she recounted what had occurred.Among other witnesses called by the State, the certified computer forensic examiner who analyzed Brantley’s laptop testified as to what he found on the hard drive, and his report, which included the photographs of clothed H. B. and the photographs of breasts and vaginas that were discovered on the laptop, was introduced into evidence and shown to the jury.

The defense theory of the case, as reflected in defense counsel’s opening statement and closing argument, was that H. B. fabricated the allegations of sexual abuse because she wanted to stay in Georgia with her boyfriend and not move back to Florida with her family.The defense also argued that the nude photographs on Brantley’s laptop were not of H. B. Brantley elected not to testify, but he called other family members as witnesses in an effort to call into question the veracity of H. B.’s account.

At the conclusion of the trial, the jury found Brantley guilty of the two aforementioned counts of child molestation.Brantley filed a motion for new trial, as amended, in which he challenged the sufficiency of the evidence and raised other claims.Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion, leading to this appeal.

[1, 2] 1.Brantley contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal because the State failed to establish the essential elements of the charged offenses or prove venue.

The standard of review for the denial of a motion for a directed verdict of acquittal is the same as for determining the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction.Under this review, we must put aside any questions about conflicting evidence, the credibility of witnesses, or the weight of the evidence, leaving the resolution of such things to the discretion of the trier of fact.When evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of constitutional due process, we must determine whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.)Monroe v. State,315 Ga. 767, 768 (1), 884 S.E.2d 906(2023).SeeJackson v. Virginia,443 U. S. 307, 319 (III)(B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560(1979).

"A person commits the offense of child molestation when such person[] … [d]oes an immoral or indecent act to or in the presence of or with any child under the age of 16 years with the intent to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either the child or the person."OCGA § 16-6-4 (a)(1).One count of the indictment alleged that Brantley committed child molestation in Hancock County by placing H. B.’s hand on his penis with the intent to arouse and satisfy his...