Broussard v. State

• Decision Date: 10 February 2003
• Docket Number: No. S03A0036.,S03A0036.
• Citation: Broussard v. State, 276 Ga. 216, 576 S.E.2d 883 (Ga. 2003)
• Parties: BROUSSARD v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

576 S.E.2d 883

276 Ga. 216

BROUSSARD v.The STATE.

No. S03A0036.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

February 10, 2003.

Mitchell D. Durham, Marietta, for appellant.

Patrick H. Head, Dist. Atty., Amy H. McChesney, Marion T. Woodward, Asst. Dist. Attys., Marietta, Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., Ruth M. Pawlak, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, for appellee.

CARLEY, Justice.

A jury found John Wayne Broussard guilty on alternative counts of malice and felony murder of Terrence Greene, as well as six counts of aggravated assault on other individuals.Concluding that the evidence supported the verdict as to malice murder, the trial court entered judgment of conviction and imposed a life sentence for that offense and thereby vacated the felony murder verdict by operation of law.Malcolm v. State,263 Ga. 369, 372(5), 434 S.E.2d 479(1993).The trial court also entered judgments of conviction on all six guilty verdicts for aggravated assault and imposed ten-year sentences to run concurrently with each other, but consecutively with the life sentence for murder.After the denial of a motion for new trial, Broussard brings this appeal.¹

1.While Appellant was attending a party, an argument broke out between one of his friends and Greene.The two went outside, where each was joined by a number of his supporters.Suddenly, a gun was fired at those gathered around Greene's van.As he and his friends fled, Greene exclaimed that he was shot.When the police arrived, they found the abandoned van, but did not find Greene.The next morning, Greene's body was discovered down the street from his parked vehicle.He died from a gunshot to the back.Greene had a shotgun shell clutched in his hand and, some distance away, the investigators found a shotgun.After the shootings, Appellant admitted to a friend that he intentionally fired at the crowd.In his statement to officers, however, he claimed that he was not armed, that he shot no one and that he never saw a weapon in the possession of Greene or any of Greene's friends.

When construed most strongly in support of the jury's guilty verdicts, the evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find proof of Broussard's guilt of malice murder and six counts of aggravated assault beyond a reasonable doubt.Jackson v. Virginia,443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560(1979).

2.Appellant enumerates as error the trial court's refusal to give a requested charge on self-defense.According to Appellant's own statement to the police, however, he did not fire any weapon.Justification is an affirmative defense whereby the defendant admits acting with the intent to inflict an injury, but claims that he did so while in reasonable fear of suffering immediate serious harm to himself or another.Austin v. State,275 Ga. 346, 347(2), 566 S.E.2d 673(2002).

Broussard correctly asserts that the jury was not required to believe his statement, and that it was authorized to credit the prosecution's evidence identifying him as the shooter.However, nothing supported a finding that, if he did shoot, he acted in self-defense.The undisputed direct evidence, including Appellant's own statement, indicated that he was not aware that any member of the opposing crowd, including Greene, was armed.If he did not have a reasonable belief that firing the gun was necessary to defend himself or another from any of the victims' imminent use of unlawful force, his act was not justified.Alexis v. State,273 Ga. 423, 426(4), 541 S.E.2d 636(2001).At most, the evidence showed that Greene owned the shotgun that was found the next morning in the vicinity of his body.However, all of the circumstantial evidence, including the fact that the fatal wound was to the back, was consistent with Appellant firing the gun as the victims were attempting to flee.Riley v. State,274 Ga. 342, 343(2), 553 S.E.2d 797(2001).Therefore, even assuming that Greene or one of his friends may have held the weapon at some point, Broussard could not have been in imminent fear at the time he committed the acts for which he was being tried.SeeBrown v. State,270 Ga. 601, 603(2), 512 S.E.2d 260(1999).

Under the evidence, either Appellant did not shoot at all, as he claimed to the police, or he intentionally fired the gun at the fleeing crowd, as the prosecution showed.Because no construction of the evidence...