Brooks v. State

• Decision Date: 07 March 2016
• Docket Number: No. S15A1480.,S15A1480.
• Citation: 783 S.E.2d 895
• Parties: BROOKS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

783 S.E.2d 895

BROOKS

v.The STATE.

No. S15A1480.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 7, 2016.

Leah Davis Madden, Davis Madden & Associates PC, Atlanta, for appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Department of Law, Scott O. Teague, Department of Law, Atlanta, Leonora Grant, Deputy Chief Asst. Dist. Atty., Robert D. James Jr., Dist. Atty., Lenny I. Krick, Sr. Asst. Dist. Atty., Gerald Mason, Asst. Dist. Atty., Dekalb

County District Attorney's Office, Shannon Elysia Holder, Dekalb County District Attorney's Office, Decatur, for appellee.

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

In this murder case, which was tried after January 1, 2013, the effective date of the new Evidence Code, we are called upon to decide whether the admission of other acts evidence to prove identity, motive and course of conduct was error. We find the trial court erred in admitting the other acts evidence and reverse appellant's conviction.

Appellant Fred Dalton Brooks was convicted of malice murder in connection with the death of James Carter.¹ Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we find the following: Appellant and Harold David Edgens were employed at a Hormel meat packing plant for a short period of time in 1970 and 1971. Five or six years later, appellant and Edgens went to the plant to break into the coin and vending machines. They posed as employees so Carter, a security guard, would allow them entry into the plant. Carter saw appellant and Edgens attempting to retrieve money from the machines and told them they would be going to jail. Appellant and Edgens forced Carter into the employees' locker room and bound him with two leather belts and a long-sleeved shirt. They took Carter's wallet, keys, credit card, and driver's license. Appellant shot Carter in the back seven times as he was lying face down on the floor. No arrests were made and the case went cold in 1977.

Approximately 36 years later, in March of 2012, while housed as an inmate in the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, Georgia, appellant confessed to a deputy warden and DeKalb County detectives that he and Edgens killed Carter. In so doing, appellant provided specific details about the murder which enabled the detectives to determine that appellant was indeed one of the perpetrators. Latent fingerprints lifted from the crime scene² at the time of the murder had been archived in the latent print section. The latent fingerprint cards were retrieved and shown to match appellant's known fingerprints.

Appellant testified at trial, telling the jury that he was not at the meat packing plant when Carter was murdered. He claimed Edgens murdered Carter and told him the details of the crime in 1979.³ Appellant said he falsely confessed to the murder of Carter, hoping that his cooperation would enable him to serve the remainder of his jail time in Mississippi⁴ under more favorable conditions.⁵

1. Although appellant does not raise the general grounds, we have examined the evidence and find it sufficient to enable any rational trier of fact to find appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes with which he was charged. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also Sheffield v. State, 281 Ga. 33, 34, 635 S.E.2d 776 (2006).

2. Prior to trial, the State informed appellant that it intended to introduce evidence showing appellant and an accomplice murdered a Mississippi state trooper in 1983. The State asserted the evidence was admissible to prove identity, motive and course of conduct and the trial court deemed it admissible on those grounds. Thereafter, in presenting its case-in-chief, the State introduced evidence over appellant's objection showing that, after escaping from a Georgia prison and fleeing to Mississippi, appellant and an accomplice murdered the trooper after he pulled them over in a traffic stop. The trooper was found lying face down; he was shot twice in the back of the head. Appellant pled guilty to that crime. In so doing, he admitted his presence and participation in the murder, but claimed his accomplice fired the shots that killed the trooper.

Appellant contends the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the Mississippi murder to show identity, motive and course of conduct under the new Evidence Code. See OCGA § 24–4–404(b).⁶ We review this contention pursuant to a clear abuse of discretion standard. See Bradshaw v. State, 296 Ga. 650, 656, 769 S.E.2d 892 (2015).

Although evidence of other acts is inadmissible to show an accused's propensity to commit a crime, it may "be admissible for other purposes, including, but not limited to, proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident." OCGA § 24–4–404(b). To determine whether other acts evidence is admissible for these purposes under the new Evidence Code, the State must satisfy a three-part test: (1) the evidence needs to be relevant to an issue other than bad character; (2) the probative value of the other acts evidence cannot be outweighed substantially by its unfair prejudice; and (3) there must be sufficient proof to enable the jury to find that the accused committed the other acts. See State v. Jones, 297 Ga. 156, 158–159, 773 S.E.2d 170 (2015) ; Bradshaw, supra.

Here, appellant admitted committing the Mississippi murder. Thus, the State met the third part of the test for admissibility. With regard to the first part,⁷ whether evidence of the Mississippi murder was relevant to the issues of appellant's identity, motive and course of conduct in the murder of James Carter, we examine these issues seriatim, looking to federal case law for guidance.⁸

Identity. "[E]vidence offered to prove identity must satisfy a particularly stringent analysis. When extrinsic offense evidence is introduced to prove identity, the likeness of the offenses is the crucial consideration. The physical similarity must be such that it marks the offenses as the handiwork of the accused. In other words, the evidence must demonstrate a modus operandi. The extrinsic act must be a ‘signature’ crime, and the defendant must have used a modus operandi that is uniquely his. The signature trait requirement is imposed to insure that the government is not relying on an inference based on mere character—that a defendant has a propensity for criminal behavior. Evidence cannot be used to prove identity simply because the defendant has at other times committed the same commonplace variety of criminal act." United States v. Phaknikone, 605 F.3d 1099, 1108 (11th Cir.2010) (citations and quotation marks omitted). Following these principles, we conclude that, although the Mississippi murder and the murder of Carter bore some similarities,⁹ evidence of the Mississippi murder was not admissible to prove identity because the crimes were not so similar as to mark the murders as the handiwork of appellant. On the contrary, the modus operandi for each murder was relatively commonplace—these were not signature crimes. Compare United States v. Clemons, 32 F.3d 1504, 1508–1509 (11th Cir.1994) (uncharged carjackings were sufficiently similar to the charged offense of a carjack-murder to warrant their admission in evidence to prove identity) with Amey v. State, 331 Ga.App. 244, 250, 770 S.E.2d 321 (2015) (prior armed robbery not admissible to prove identity because it was not sufficiently similar to charged offense of armed robbery). See also United States v. Cardenas, 895 F.2d 1338, 1342 (11th Cir.1990) ("A much greater degree of similarity between the charged crime and the uncharged crime is required when the evidence of the other crime is introduced to prove identity than when it is introduced to prove a state of mind.") (citation and quotation marks omitted).

Moreover, under our new Evidence Code we are charged to consider the dissimilarities as well as similarities in determining whether other acts evidence is admissible to show identity. See United States v. Lail, 846 F.2d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir.1988).¹⁰ In this regard, we note the murders in this case were committed seven years and hundreds of miles apart. One victim was bound before he was forced to lie down and shot seven times; the other victim was not bound and only shot twice. One murder stemmed from an attempted theft; the other came on the heels of a prison break. In sum, the dissimilarities are stark and militate against the supposition that the murders were committed by the same person. Compare Clemons, supra (three previous gunpoint carjackings within three weeks and near same vicinity as charged offense of carjacking-murder admissible to prove identity); Phaknikone, supra at 1110 (six bank robberies within six months and 40 mile radius established modus operandi where in each robbery the perpetrators wore black ski masks, white-topped gloves and hooded sweatshirts, and waved handguns while shouting profanities).

Motive. Motive is "the reason that nudges the will and prods the mind to indulge the criminal intent." United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898, 912, n. 15 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc). Other acts evidence may be admitted to show motive under OCGA § 24–4–404(b) even where, as in this case, it is extrinsic to the crime charged.¹¹ United States v. Frye, 193 Fed.Appx. 948, 951 (11th Cir.2006). "Overall similarity between the charged crime and the extrinsic offense is not required when the offense is introduced to show motive. [Cit.]" Id. Even so, to be admitted to prove motive, extrinsic evidence must be "logically relevant and necessary to prove something other than the accused's propensity to commit the crime charged." Milich, § 11.3 at p. 244. See also Bradshaw, supra at 657, 769 S.E.2d 892 (admissibility of other acts evidence calls for common sense approach, which includes prosecutorial need). To rule otherwise "would make all prior robberies admissible in any robbery case, all...