Butler v. State

• Citation: 511 S.E.2d 180,270 Ga. 441
• Decision Date: 19 January 1999
• Docket Number: No. S98A1739, No. S98A1742., No. S98A1738
• Parties: BUTLER v. The STATE. Langston v. The State. White v. The State.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

511 S.E.2d 180

270 Ga. 441

BUTLER v. The STATE.

Langston v. The State.

White v. The State.

Nos. S98A1738, S98A1739, S98A1742.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

January 19, 1999.

Johnson, Prioleau & Lynch, Theodore Johnson, Atlanta, for appellant (case no. S98A1738).

Dwight L. Thomas, Caprice J. Small, Atlanta, for appellant (case no. S98A1739).

R. Gary Spencer, Atlanta, for appellant (case no. S98A1742).

Paul L. Howard, District Attorney, Bettieanne C. Hart, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Daniel G. Ashburn, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, Atlanta, for appellee. SEARS, Justice.

Arthur Butler, Antonio Langston, and Demetrius White were jointly indicted and tried for numerous crimes stemming from the shooting death of Donnie Cantrell. They now appeal from their various convictions and sentences.¹ On appeal, they raise numerous issues, including that the trial court erred in failing to sever their trials, that the trial court should have granted them new trials based upon juror misconduct, and that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a statement that Langston gave to police before trial. We conclude, however, that the issues raised by the appellants are without merit, and we therefore affirm their convictions.

The evidence introduced at trial showed that on April 19, 1996, the victims, Ronald Murray, Jethro Richardson, and Donnie Cantrell traveled to Atlanta from Akron, Ohio. The three men were traveling in a black Cadillac driven by Murray. After arriving in Atlanta and visiting a night club that evening, they got lost and eventually stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Connally Street in Southeast Atlanta. While at the traffic light, the three men noticed Shemika Branham, Renee Alexander, and Sherita Cotton standing on the corner of Memorial Drive near a phone both. The men parked their car at the curb on Connally Street near the phone booth to talk with the women. Renee Alexander stood at the driver's window talking with Ronald Murray, Shemika Branham stood at the front passenger's window speaking to Jethro Richardson, and Sherita Cotton stood at the right rear passenger's window talking with Donnie Cantrell

Meanwhile, according to witness Rodney Crumbley, a group of men standing under a tree near an apartment building on Memorial Drive had been observing the Cadillac. The group was across the street from the Cadillac. Crumbley testified that the group included appellants White, Langston (who had his hair braided), and Butler, as well as co-defendant Gregory Smith and an individual identified only as "Man." Crumbley added that all the people in the group made comments indicating an intent to rob the men in the Cadillac, but that White was the first person to raise the idea. Crumbley also stated that White, Langston, and Butler all said they were armed. Crumbley testified that "Man" suggested that the group could walk toward a nearby Amoco station, and then "get them [the people in the Cadillac] coming back." According to Crumbley, White, Langston, Butler, Smith, and "Man" then walked toward the Amoco station and then back toward the Cadillac. Shemika Branham observed White, Langston, Butler, and Smith walk past the Cadillac several times, and testified that the last time that the group walked by, Smith was not with the others. Another witness, Patient McClarin, testified that she observed the young women talking to the men in the Cadillac, and she saw the group of men under the tree. McClarin also stated that she saw White, Langston, Butler, Smith and an unidentified male cross the street toward the Cadillac.

Ronald Murray and Jethro Richardson testified that as the three men in the car ended their conversation with the three young women, three armed men approached the Cadillac, with one pointing a gun at Cantrell in the right rear passenger seat, one pointing a gun at Richardson in the front passenger seat, and one pointing a gun at Murray in the driver's seat. Shemika Branham, Sherita Cotton, Ronald Murray, and Jethro Richardson heard the man at the driver's side order the men in the car to empty their pockets. Murray testified that Richardson, Cantrell, and he gave the gunmen the money that they had. He added that he could not identify the two gunmen who were on the passenger side of the car, but that the gunman pointing a gun at him had braids in his hair. Shemika Branham and Sherita Cotton identified Langston as the gunman at the driver's window, but they also testified that they did not see gunmen at the passenger side windows. Shemika Branham added that when she saw Langston pointing a gun at the driver, she turned to run, and that as she did so, she saw White coming through a fence next to a nearby apartment building. In an attempt to escape the robbery, Ronald Murray backed the car away from the curb. The armed men began shooting at the car, fatally wounding Donnie Cantrell.

Rodney Crumbley testified that he saw Langston later that night and that Langston told him that he (Langston) thought that White had killed someone. On April 20, 1996, the police arrested White at his girlfriend's residence. Upon searching the residence, the police found a partially empty box of Remington .380 caliber ammunition. The police also found six shell casings at the scene of the robbery that were determined to be Remington .380 caliber casings.

Butler, Langston, White, and Smith were jointly indicted and tried for the crimes. Smith called McKesia Trent as a witness. Trent testified that she lived right across the street from Smith's sister, and that when she stands on her porch and looks across the street she can see in the apartment of Smith's sister. She testified that on the evening of the crime, she went onto her porch and looked across the street and saw Smith and Butler standing near the door to Smith's sister's apartment. At about that same time, she saw shots being fired at the Cadillac.

As previously stated in this opinion, Butler, Langston, and White were all convicted of various offenses, including felony murder. Smith, however, was acquitted of all charges.

1. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found Butler, Langston, and White guilty beyond a

reasonable doubt of the crimes for which they were convicted.²

2. Butler, Langston, and White all contend that the trial court erred in failing to grant their motions for a new trial based upon juror misconduct. For the reasons that follow, we disagree.

At the hearing on the motions for new trial, juror Farah Carter was asked whether she knew if any jurors had gone to the scene of the crime at some point during the trial and reported what they saw to the jury. She responded that she did not know whether any jurors had gone to the scene during trial or whether they had been by the scene before trial, but she added that while the jurors were trying to determine the distance between some of the objects at the scene when examining a photo or sketch of the scene, one juror made a statement that she had been at the scene and knew about the distances. She could not recall whether the juror related any specific fact about the distances to the other jurors, and she stated that nothing that happened in this regard contributed to her verdict.

Suparna Malempati, who represented Smith at trial, testified that she spoke with Carter several weeks after trial, and that Carter told her that a couple of the jurors had been to the scene and told other jurors that the distance from the place of the shooting to the apartment of Smith's sister was not far.

When another juror, Gladys Waters, was asked whether she recalled any jurors stating that they had gone to the crime scene during deliberations, she responded that she vaguely remembered that occurring. She could not remember specifically what they mentioned about the crime scene, but she stated that generally they said that the distances at the crime scene were not what they "looked like on the picture." She could not recall the names of jurors who had been to the crime scene. Also, although she stated first that she was not sure if the information had had an impact on her verdict, she then added that it was possible that the information had had an impact. The only other juror to testify stated that she did not remember any jurors stating that they had been to the crime scene; that she recalled reviewing the crime scene photographs and diagrams; and that did not recall any extrajudicial information that contributed to the verdict.

Jurors generally are not permitted to impeach their verdict,³ but this rule "does yield to a defendant's constitutional guarantees. Whether or not [an] exception should be made must be determined by the circumstances of the case."⁴ To set aside a jury verdict solely because of irregular jury conduct, this Court must conclude that the conduct was so prejudicial that the verdict is inherently lacking in due process.⁵ In Bobo, in which we reversed the conviction because two jurors visited the crime scene and provided information to the jury, it was

undisputed that [the] two jurors affirmatively sought to sway their fellow jurors' votes by relating personal observations and opinions concerning facts and circumstances surrounding the crime which were critical to determining the credibility of the sole eyewitness' identification. Moreover, there is some evidence that their statements had the desired effect, since two other jurors testified that the vote shifted in favor of conviction after the improper evidence was introduced into the deliberations, and one of those two indicated the evidence had influenced his vote.⁶

Here, in contrast, even if we assume that one or more jurors related personal knowledge of the crime scene to the jury, there is...