Casillas v. State, A98A0932.

• Decision Date: 03 August 1998
• Docket Number: No. A98A0932.,A98A0932.
• Parties: CASILLAS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

505 S.E.2d 251

233 Ga. App. 752

CASILLAS v. The STATE.

No. A98A0932.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

August 3, 1998.

Certiorari Denied January 15, 1999.

Gregory N. Crawford, Savannah, for appellant.

Spencer Lawton, Jr., District Attorney, Ronald M. Adams, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee. BLACKBURN, Judge.

Joe M. Casillas was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime in connection with the shooting death of Martin Leonard Wright. He appeals, asserting numerous errors. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence at trial revealed the following. Corporals Ted Hatch and Timothy Lawler of the Savannah Police Department were dispatched to the scene of a reported shooting. At the scene, Corporal Hatch saw Casillas standing between two vehicles, with Wright, the victim, lying on the ground with a bullet wound between his eyebrows. Casillas told Hatch that he and a friend, Henry Ruiz, had been upstairs drinking beer with Wright, when Wright "just grabbed the gun and shot himself in the head." Casillas said that he and Ruiz dragged the victim down the stairs and "were going to attempt to take him to the hospital, but that for some reason or other, they changed their mind and called the police."

Corporal Lawler heard defendant state to Corporal Hatch that "the victim had taken the gun and shot himself in the head." Lawler went upstairs into the apartment and found Henry Ruiz standing inside the doorway. Lawler noticed a semi-automatic weapon on the table. A spent shell casing and a live round of ammunition were recovered from the apartment floor.

Henry Ruiz testified that he served in the same platoon where defendant was a staff sergeant in the 75th Ranger Battalion, at Hunter Army Airfield. On the day in question, Casillas and Ruiz each purchased a 12-pack of beer. At around 8:00 p.m., they left defendant's apartment and went to a bar, where they spent a couple of hours drinking. They went to another bar around midnight, where Ruiz met the victim, Martin Wright, who was in a wheelchair. Ruiz and Casillas bought the victim some beer. They stayed until closing time, at which point the three men returned to defendant's apartment where they watched a videotape about the Rangers and drank more beer. In Ruiz's opinion, all three of them were under the influence of alcohol.

According to Ruiz, when the victim told Casillas that he did not believe Casillas' stories of combat experience, the two of them argued. At some point, Casillas went to his bedroom and returned with a pistol and a bag of ammunition.

Ruiz testified that the victim jokingly said that "he'd rather be dead" because he could no longer have intercourse because he was paralyzed from the waist down. According to Ruiz, Casillas then said that "he could assist him in that, he had a pistol nearby. And he [the victim] said, put it in my mouth. So the gun was inserted in [the victim's] mouth [by Casillas], jokingly." This episode was repeated. Ruiz testified that he "took the pistol and took all the rounds out of it." Henry Ruiz never saw the victim handle the gun by himself, before he left the dining room area and went to try to sleep on a couch. But an argument ensued when the beer ran out. The victim "was being kind of obnoxious and told [Casillas] to put the pistol back in his mouth. And the Defendant did." Ruiz testified that he saw defendant reload the weapon, stand up with "[b]oth hands on the pistol grip," and point the weapon at the victim from a distance of three or four feet. Ruiz did not actually see Casillas fire the weapon, because Ruiz "was resting [his] head between [his] arms, just exhausted." The victim was shot in the center of the forehead. Ruiz believed defendant washed his hands thereafter.

Ruiz testified that, although his "[f]irst instinct was to call EMS or take him to the hospital or something," he and Casillas "started to roll [the victim] down the stairs, and as [they] got to the doorway, ... [the victim's] body fell out of the wheelchair and fell down the flight of stairs." Casillas eventually summoned the police. He told Ruiz to say that the victim "shot himself in the forehead," so Ruiz initially told police at the scene "that [the victim] had self-inflicted himself." However, Detective Aaron L. Quarterman testified that the location of the spent shell casing on the floor indicated the shot was not fired by the victim: "If [that] man shot himself, that shell casing's not supposed to be across the room ..., it's supposed to be in the opposite direction."

William Medart, M.D., performed the autopsy on the victim. In his opinion, "[t]his young man died as a result of a gunshot wound which entered his forehead a little bit above the level of between the eyes and which traversed the entire brain and exited... from the rear of the brain." Dr. Medart "did not notice evidence of stippling[,] ... the term used to refer to small black either particles or burns around an entrance wound which are indicative of the skin being hit by hot black powder." Roger Wayne Parian, the director and firearms examiner for the Division of Forensic Sciences at the Savannah branch of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory, testified that the spent shell casing was fired from the .40 caliber semi-automatic weapon found in the apartment. Parian testified that "[t]he only way [he] could make [the weapon] discharge was by pulling the trigger either in the single- or double-action mode." In the absence of stippling, Parian opined "the muzzle to target distance had to be greater than twenty-four inches at least."

In a custodial statement, defendant essentially corroborated Ruiz's version of events as to the extended drinking and playing with the weapon. Defendant stated he "took out the magazine, cleared the weapon, and everybody started playing around with the gun, squeezing it. The gun was clear.... We continued drinking.... And I still thought the weapon was clear. But I had it in my hand. I thought it was pointed above his head. I thought it was pointed above his head.... I thought I was pointing it away from his head at a safe distance. I wasn't intentionally knowing that the gun was loaded. Somebody ... must have loaded it.... I squeezed the trigger, not knowing the gun was loaded, and shot him in the head.... It was an accident. We were just trying to show [the victim] a good time, `cause he was crippled, you know."

After Ruiz testified, Detective Quarterman testified about a custodial statement made by Ruiz. In this statement, Ruiz made no mention of unloading the weapon himself. Rather, he told Detective Quarterman the victim "was acting very immature. At this time, Sgt. Casillas had ejected all the rounds in the weapon, and they fell on the floor.... At this time, the gun was then ... again put in his mouth. Both of them did it. It was empty. Sgt. Casillas had pulled the trigger while the gun was in his mouth. During this time, there was an argument on fraternization between privates and NCO's.... At this time, sergeant was putting the rounds back in the clip.... Sgt. Casillas had put the weapon in front of [the victim's] face, and it was loaded at this time and off safe, because I remember hearing it go off safe, and [the victim] lunged for the weapon, and they kind of struggled with it. One of the rounds went into [the victim's] forehead. Sgt. Casillas had control of the weapon and [the victim] lunged for it, and the round went off in his forehead."

Casillas took the stand and testified that, just before the fatal shot, he had put the clip back into the weapon. However, he testified that the gun would not fire unless there was a round in the chamber, and that he was positive there was no round in the chamber unless Ruiz had loaded one. Casillas testified that the victim "was reaching for [the weapon].... I believe he put his hand on the weapon, try to pull it, tried to get it out of my hand to look—to—to grab it. And the gun went off. It just happened so quick." He testified that when the gun discharged, he cursed and asked Ruiz who had loaded the gun. Defendant denied he had been negligent when handling the gun himself because he believed it was unloaded.

The jury acquitted defendant of charges of murder (Count 1), felony murder (Count 2), and involuntary manslaughter during the commission of the unlawful act of pointing a pistol at another (Count 3) but found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter during the commission of the unlawful act of reckless conduct (Count 4) and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime (Count 5). Defendant's motion for new trial, was denied and this appeal followed.

1. Casillas contends that the trial court erred in excluding evidence regarding prior instances of reckless behavior on the

part of the victim. This evidence consisted of the testimony of a police officer that Wright had, on several occasions in the past, been found in the early morning hours intoxicated and sitting in his wheelchair in the road, creating a dangerous condition.

The general character and specific conduct of the victim on other occasions are not generally relevant or admissible. The trial court has broad discretion in determining admissibility in such matters. See Moss v. State, 206 Ga.App. 310(1), 425 S.E.2d 386 (1992) ("`the admission or exclusion of evidence which is objected to on the ground of relevancy lies within the sound discretion of the trial court, whose decision will not be disturbed on appeal absent a clear abuse of discretion'"). See also Causey v. State, 215 Ga.App. 723, 724(3), 452 S.E.2d 564 (1994).

In Causey, supra, the defendant appealed the trial court's exclusion of evidence of the victim's prior drug use, contending that such evidence was the core of his defense. We held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in...