Caldwell v. State

• Decision Date: 03 May 2022
• Docket Number: S22A0229
• Citation: 313 Ga. 640,872 S.E.2d 712
• Parties: CALDWELL v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

313 Ga. 640

872 S.E.2d 712

CALDWELL

v.The STATE.

S22A0229

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: May 3, 2022

Troy Edward Golden, Dougherty Circuit Public Defender's Office, P.O. Box 1827, Albany, Georgia 31702-1827, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Michael Alexander Oldham, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Kathleen Leona McCanless, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Gregory W. Edwards, District Attorney, Melinda April Wynne, A.D.A., Dougherty County District Attorney's Office, P.O. Box 1827, Albany, Georgia 31702, for Appellee.

McMillian, Justice.

Willie Caldwell appeals his conviction for felony murder arising out of the shooting death of Ricardo McPherson.¹ On appeal, Caldwell asserts that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction because a key witness was an accomplice and her testimony was not corroborated and that the trial court erred by failing to give a curative instruction after the District Attorney's prejudicial closing argument. Although we conclude that the evidence was sufficient under the accomplice-corroboration statute to convict, we determine that the trial court should have provided a curative instruction for the District Attorney's erroneous argument and that the error was harmful, so we reverse.

The evidence presented at trial showed that on September 15, 2008, McPherson was in his apartment in Dougherty County, talking on the phone with a work colleague, Shabreka Perry. Perry testified that she and McPherson were having a casual conversation, when, through the phone, Perry heard a knock on McPherson's door; McPherson asked who it was, and a female voice answered, "Brittany." McPherson said, "Brittany? I don't know a Brittany." Next, Perry heard McPherson say, "You can have whatever you want. Just don't shoot." Perry testified that she then heard a "thump" and McPherson say, "Oh, man. That's f***ed up." After Perry called 911 from another cell phone, she remained on the line with McPherson, but he was not responding to her. Perry testified that she heard "scruffling and furniture moving" but nothing else.

Sergeant Jennifer Hausman from the Albany Police Department responded to the scene and found McPherson dead. Sergeant Hausman testified that based on evidence collected at the scene, at least two shots were fired – one shot struck the bottom of the couch, and one shot went through the ceiling. The pillows from the couch were thrown around the living room, and the drawers were pulled out from a dresser located in the bedroom.² Sergeant Hausman testified that she had no knowledge of any DNA, fingerprint, or other physical evidence that would link any suspect to the crime scene. Another officer also responded to the crime scene that day, and his initial investigation showed that McPherson was a drug dealer.

The medical examiner who performed McPherson's autopsy testified that McPherson died as a result of a gunshot wound and that stippling on the body showed that the barrel of the gun was within four feet of the victim when the fatal shot was fired.

Over a year later, in October 2009, a man came to the Albany Police Department to talk about the McPherson case. From this new information, Officer Charlie Roberts developed a lead, Shyquandria Williams; he contacted Williams and she agreed to come to Albany to provide information about the McPherson case. Based on Williams's statement, which was recorded, Caldwell, Jatarious Bronner, and Theojuana McCullar were determined to be suspects in McPherson's murder.

At trial, the State's case rested almost entirely on Williams's testimony. Williams testified that she and McCullar went to high school together, were good friends, and in 2008 lived together off and on. Williams was in a sexual relationship with Caldwell in 2008; she also knew Bronner but was not in a relationship with him. On September 15, 2008, Williams was with McCullar, Caldwell, and Bronner. The group was looking for marijuana and decided to drive to Albany to find it. McCullar drove, Williams rode in the front passenger seat, and Caldwell and Bronner sat in the back seat. Williams testified that she "[thought Caldwell] made a phone call once" and that the group ended up at McPherson's apartment to purchase marijuana. Caldwell told Williams to knock on the apartment door because McPherson would answer the door for a woman. Williams went to the door and knocked, with Caldwell standing next to her. McPherson asked who it was, and she said, "I came to purchase some weed."³ As McPherson was opening the door, Caldwell shoved Williams out of the way and entered the apartment. Williams turned from the apartment doorway and walked down the stairs back towards the car; as she was leaving, she heard a gunshot. She started running toward the car, where McCullar was waiting in the driver's seat. Williams got in, and McCullar pulled the car down the road and then made a U-turn to go back and pick up Caldwell and Bronner.

Williams testified that McCullar never left the car; Williams did not see Bronner enter the apartment, but saw him exiting the apartment. Williams testified that when she and Caldwell approached McPherson's door, they had a couple of dollars for a "sack of weed." But, she explained, after they left McPherson's apartment, the group drove back to McCullar's house where they drank alcohol and smoked more weed than they would have been able to purchase with the little money they had at the beginning of the night. The next morning, Williams heard about McPherson's death and saw on the news "them bringing his body out of the apartment." She testified that this was the same apartment she had been to the day before where she heard the gunshot.

After police officers interviewed Williams in 2009, she was charged with the murder of McPherson. Her murder warrant was issued on November 1, 2009, but she was never indicted, and the warrant was eventually dismissed on May 27, 2016. On the morning of Williams's testimony at trial in July 2018, she entered into an immunity agreement with the District Attorney whereby she was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her agreement to testify.⁴ Williams testified that in 2009, her attorney began negotiations with the District Attorney to secure immunity for her and as a result she was not indicted in 2011 along with Caldwell, McCullar, and Bronner. Williams's recorded interview with police officers in October 2009 was played for the jury. In that interview, Williams told the police, "I swear to God I have never seen [McPherson] before"; she admitted at trial that this statement was a lie. Williams also told police officers in the interview that Caldwell went to buy weed from McPherson, and the deal went bad, but that she was not there when it happened. Williams testified at trial that this statement was also a lie. Also during the interview, Williams stated that Caldwell was in the alley behind McPherson's apartment when he called McCullar to come pick him up and that Williams herself never got out of the car and did not hear a gunshot. Williams admitted that this story, too, was a lie. When Caldwell's defense attorney asked Williams if she had "lost track of how many fibs [she had] already told," Williams answered, "Yes, ma'am." Neither Caldwell nor his co-defendants testified at trial, and there was no evidence admitted of any statements that they may have previously given.

1. In his first enumeration of error, Caldwell asserts that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions under OCGA § 24-14-8 because: (1) Williams was the sole witness implicating Caldwell in the crimes, (2) she was an accomplice, and (3) her testimony was not corroborated.⁵ On appeal, the State does not contest Caldwell's first and third assertions but argues that the evidence was sufficient because the jury could have determined that Williams was not an accomplice, such that her testimony did not need to be corroborated.

OCGA § 24-14-8 provides that "[t]he testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact," but in "felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice, the testimony of a single witness shall not be sufficient" to support a defendant's convictions but instead requires corroboration. "[W]here the evidence presented at trial could support a finding that a witness acted as an accomplice, it is for the jury to determine whether the witness acted in such a capacity." Doyle v. State , 307 Ga. 609, 612 (2) (a), 837 S.E.2d 833 (2020).

Here, evidence was presented that Williams was an accomplice, so that issue was properly submitted to the jury.⁶ The jury was given instructions on Georgia's accomplice-corroboration requirement, as well as the test for determining whether a witness is an accomplice. Although the trial court originally stated an intention to give the jury a special interrogatory form to determine whether Williams was an accomplice, the court declined to submit a special verdict form to the jury on this issue. On appeal, Caldwell makes no argument that these instructions or the verdict form were erroneous in any way. Instead, Caldwell asserts that because there was no special verdict on the issue, the jury could have (and should have) determined that Williams was an accomplice, such that her uncorroborated testimony was insufficient to convict. We disagree.

Long-standing authority in Georgia provides that when the issue of whether a witness was an accomplice was submitted to the jury and there was evidence allowing the jury to find that the witness was not an accomplice, corroborating evidence is not required to sustain a guilty verdict on appeal. See, e.g., Hargrove v. State , 125 Ga. 270, 274, 54 S.E. 164 (1906) (even joint indictment and guilty plea of witness do[ ] not eliminate the jury...