Daniels v. State
| Decision Date | 08 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | A18A1865 |
| Citation | 349 Ga.App. 681,824 S.E.2d 754 |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
| Parties | DANIELS v. The STATE. |
Veronica M. O’Grady, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Lyndsey H. Rudder, Marc A. Mallon, Kevin C. Armstrong, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
After a jury trial, Kareem Daniels was convicted of robbery by force. He appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in not allowing him to impeach the victim with a prior inconsistent statement, that the state knowingly failed to correct false testimony from the victim, and that the admission of black and white photographs instead of the original color versions constituted plain error. But Daniels has failed to show that the trial court abused its discretion in prohibiting cross-examination about a collateral matter, that the testimony in question was actually false, or that the admission of the photographs affected the outcome of the trial. Accordingly, we affirm.
Construed in favor of the verdict, see Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), the evidence shows that on September 28, 2012, Lakeidra Taylor was walking to her apartment from a bus stop after work when Daniels drove slowly past her in an SUV. Daniels parked his vehicle in the apartment complex, got out of it, and forced Taylor into the back seat of his vehicle. Taylor pushed Daniels away and got out of the vehicle, but during the struggle Daniels took Taylor’s wallet from her. Taylor used her cell phone to take a picture of Daniels holding her wallet and a picture of the license plate on his vehicle. Daniels eventually left the scene in his vehicle and Taylor called 911 to report the incident. Police apprehended Daniels later that evening.
The jury found Daniels guilty of robbery by force and the trial court imposed a 20-year sentence, with five years to be served in confinement and the remainder to be served on probation.1 Daniels appealed, and this court granted his motion to remand the case to the trial court to consider the admission of photographic evidence and whether the state had knowingly elicited false testimony from the victim. After a hearing on remand, the trial court found no errors and denied a new trial. Daniels filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied, and this appeal followed.
Daniels contends that the trial court erred in prohibiting him from impeaching the victim with a prior inconsistent statement. We review that ruling for abuse of discretion and find no such abuse.
See Thomas v. State , 293 Ga. 829, 833 (4), 750 S.E.2d 297 (2013) ; Cruz v. State , 347 Ga. App. 810, 813 (2), 821 S.E.2d 44 (2018).
On direct examination, Taylor testified that she had met Daniels several months before the robbery while she was working at a Kroger grocery store. While explaining that at the time of the robbery she no longer worked at Kroger but was working at a hotel, Taylor testified: On cross-examination, defense counsel sought to impeach Taylor’s testimony that she had left Kroger to get into the healthcare field by asking her if the reason she had left was because she had been caught shoplifting. Taylor replied: "No, I wasn't caught shoplifting."
The state objected to the line of questioning as irrelevant. Outside the presence of the jury, defense counsel produced a statement that Taylor had purportedly written upon resigning from Kroger. Counsel read the following statement into the record:
I did a transaction for a refund that I put on a gift card that I didn't buy. I didn't receive as a gift. I kept the gift card and used it. I've also used another employee’s Kroger card to get his employee discount. Earlier this week, I did another transaction, the same as one month ago and did the same thing. I'm willing to pay back the money that I put on the gift cards and the money that was discounted to me from the employee Kroger card. As of March 31, I will resign from Kroger.
The trial court sustained the state’s objection and prohibited use of the statement for further questioning about Taylor’s resignation from Kroger, finding that it was irrelevant and collateral to the issues in the case.
Hood v. State , 299 Ga. 95, 98-99 (2), 786 S.E.2d 648 (2016).
Under OCGA § 24-6-613 (b), extrinsic evidence of a witness' prior inconsistent statement may be admitted so long as the witness is first afforded an opportunity to explain or deny the prior inconsistent statement and the opposite party is afforded an opportunity to interrogate the witness on the prior inconsistent statement or the interests of justice otherwise require.
Brewner v. State , 302 Ga. 6, 16-17 (V), 804 S.E.2d 94 (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted).
Because this Code section substantially adopted the federal rule, we look for guidance to the decisions of the federal appellate courts, which have "held—as Georgia courts did under our old Evidence Code—that prior inconsistent statements annot be introduced through extrinsic evidence if they are irrelevant or collateral to the subject matter of the case." Hood , supra at 99 (2), 786 S.E.2d 648 (citations omitted). "Thus, although aspects of Georgia’s Evidence Code dealing with prior inconsistent statements used to impeach have changed, the principle that such statements may not be introduced to impeach a witness on collateral matters remains intact." Id."A matter is collateral if the facts referred to in the statement could not be shown in evidence for any purpose independent of the contradiction." United States v. Bordeaux , 570 F.3d 1041, 1051 (V) (8th Cir. 2009) (citation and punctuation omitted).
In this case, the trial court correctly ruled that Taylor’s resignation from Kroger, including any purported reason for resigning, was a collateral matter since "the testimony [Daniels] wished to elicit from [Taylor] regarding [the reason she left a job several months prior to the robbery] was irrelevant to the issues to be considered by the trier of fact[.]" Wynn v. State , 272 Ga. 861, 862 (2), 535 S.E.2d 758 (2000). The trial court thus did not abuse its discretion in refusing to allow Daniels to introduce a prior statement to attempt to impeach the victim on a collateral matter. See United States v. Blackwood , 456 F.2d 526, 531 (2nd Cir. 1972) ().
Daniels also argues that under OCGA § 24-6-608 (b) the trial court erred in curtailing further cross-examination about Taylor’s alleged prior bad acts as shown by her written resignation statement. OCGA § 24-6-608 (b) provides:
Specific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness's character for truthfulness, other than a conviction of a crime as provided in Code Section 24-6-609, or conduct indicative of the witness's bias toward a party may not be proved by extrinsic evidence . Such instances may however, in the discretion of the court, if probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness, be inquired into on cross-examination of the witness[.]
(Emphasis supplied.)
Under the plain language of this statute, the trial court properly refused to allow Daniels to use extrinsic evidence of the prior statement for the purpose of attacking Taylor’s character for truthfulness. See Gilmer v. State , 339 Ga. App. 593, 599 (2) (c), 794 S.E.2d 653 (2016) (). And "[b]ecause OCGA § 24-6-608 (b) places the decision whether to admit specific instances of conduct within the trial court’s discretion, we will reverse the trial court’s ruling only on a clear abuse of that discretion." Gaskin v. State , 334 Ga. App. 758, 762 (1) (a), 780 S.E.2d 426 (2015). Indeed, trial United States v. Saunders , 166 F.3d 907, 920 (II) (C) (7th Cir. 1999) (citation omitted). Here, we cannot say from the record before us that further inquiry into the reasons why Taylor left her prior job was mandated or "that the trial court abused its discretion in precluding any such cross-examination under the circumstances[.]" Douglas v. State , 340 Ga. App. 168, 173 (2), 796 S.E.2d 893 (2017). See also Williams v. State , 332 Ga. App. 546, 549 (1) (b), 774 S.E.2d 126 (2015) ().
Daniels claims that his conviction must be reversed because the testimony of Taylor discussed above—that she left her job at Kroger because she wanted to get into the healthcare field and that she was not caught shoplifting—was false and the prosecutor failed to correct it. The claim is without merit.
A defendant’s right to due process is violated when a prosecutor fails to correct the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Campbell v. State
...abuse its discretion in excluding extrinsic evidence that the victim may have been having an affair).17 See Daniels v. State , 349 Ga. App. 681, 684 (2) (b), 824 S.E.2d 754 (2019) (holding that, in a robbery trial, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence as to why......