DeLoach v. State

• Decision Date: 13 March 2020
• Docket Number: S19A1299,S19X1300
• Citation: 308 Ga. 283,840 S.E.2d 396
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: DELOACH v. The STATE. The State v. DeLoach.

308 Ga. 283

840 S.E.2d 396

DELOACH

v.The STATE.

The State

v.DeLoach.

S19A1299

S19X1300

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: March 13, 2020

Ellington, Justice.

A Chatham County jury found Arheem DeLoach guilty of two counts of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Rashad Biggins and Jamell Law.¹ In Case No. S19A1299, DeLoach contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a new trial with respect to the crimes committed against Law, asserting that his trial counsel was ineffective in two ways: (1) counsel failed to move to sever the counts involving Law from those involving Biggins, and (2) counsel failed to object or to move for a mistrial when the trial judge mentioned the appellate process before giving the final jury charge. For the reasons set forth below in Division 2, we disagree and affirm this portion of the trial court's judgment. In Case No. S19X1300, the State cross-appeals, contending that the trial court erred in granting DeLoach a new trial with respect to the crimes committed against Biggins.² The State argues that the trial court's basis for granting a new trial — that the prosecutor knowingly failed to correct material, false testimony from a key witness — is unsupported by the record. As set forth in Division 3, we reverse this portion of the trial court's judgment because the record does not support the trial court's finding that the false testimony was material.

The facts relevant to both appeals are as follows. The State prosecuted DeLoach for the April 26, 2015 murder of Biggins and the June 20, 2015 murder of Law in the same trial on the theory that the murders were revenge killings linked together by forensic evidence and a witness to whom DeLoach admitted his involvement in both crimes. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdicts, the record shows the following.

Around 9:30 p.m. on April 26, 2015, Biggins was shot to death outside the Frazier Homes apartment complex in Savannah. He was shot moments after leaving the apartment of his friend, Morgan Suggs. Suggs testified that, as Biggins walked away, she heard a series of gunshots, saw Biggins fall, and heard him scream: "It's burning. It hurts. It's burning." Suggs did not see the shooting, but she saw two people running from where Biggins lay, one of whom she knew and identified at trial as Tyrell Smith. Suggs testified that she had seen Smith earlier that day when she and Biggins had been outside the apartment, supervising a group of children that Suggs was babysitting. She said that Smith and a group of men, all of whom were wearing red shirts, had arrived at the complex in response to an argument involving the girlfriend of one of the men. When the group arrived, Biggins and Suggs took the children inside. Suggs testified that when she saw Smith later that evening, after Biggins had been shot, Smith had changed out of his red shirt and was then wearing all black.

When law enforcement responded to the shooting, Biggins was still alive. He later died from his wounds at the hospital. He had three gunshot wounds, one to his back, one to his right thigh, and one to the sole of his foot. Investigators photographed the crime scene, and gathered evidence of the shooting. They recovered seven .40-caliber shell casings and four 9mm shell casings. The shell casings were clustered together in two separate groups near bloodstains not far from Suggs’ apartment, evidence from which a detective inferred that there had been two gunmen. Images of the shell casings were entered into a national database to be compared with other shell-casing images to see if the images from the Biggins shooting matched those from other crime scenes.

Investigators obtained a warrant to search Smith's apartment on May 15, 2015. After removing an uncooperative Smith from his apartment at gunpoint, investigators seized his cell phone. Smith's phone records revealed that he had sent a series of text messages shortly after the shooting. At 12:07 a.m. on April 27, before information about Biggins’ status had been released to the media, Smith sent a message to "Mafioso" stating: "Mission failed Cuzz bump me." A few hours later, Smith texted "Mugg," writing that, although the "mission" had failed, the victim had been shot twice, in the "back [and] side." Then, after Biggins’ death was made public, Smith sent a text to "John Da" stating: "187BMC." The State presented evidence that "187" is code for "homicide" and that "BMC" stands for "Beast Mode Cousins." Each of these outgoing texts contained the signature line: "B.M.C. 4 LIFE R.I.P. MARVIN HILLS."

Forensic evidence gathered from the crime scene eventually led the investigators to the second shooter, DeLoach. A forensic expert determined that the four 9mm shell casings from the Biggins shooting matched a single 9mm shell casing recovered from the scene of a shooting that had occurred on April 25, 2015, the day before Biggins was killed. On April 25, DeLoach assaulted his ex-girlfriend, Carshai Murray. Murray told the police that DeLoach was jealous and believed that she had been unfaithful to him. DeLoach, who was dressed all in black, surprised Murray by jumping out from behind bushes by her home. He then fired a gun at a car she was about to get into, and the driver of the car sped away. DeLoach told Murray: "I could have got you."³

On July 20, 2015, Jamell Law was shot to death with a .40-caliber weapon while he sat in his car on Harden Street in Savannah. Law had two passengers in the car with him. Before the shooting, Law had been seen driving through the neighborhood, looking for a friend. Minutes before the shooting, Law had robbed two people of their cameras. When Law stopped on Harden Street, three witnesses outside the car observed DeLoach and another man, Patrick Frazier, walk up to Law's car. DeLoach, who stood by the passenger-side door, told Law not to move and to "give me what you got." Law tried to roll up his window, but DeLoach snatched one of the cameras away from Law and then pulled a .40-caliber handgun from his pocket and shot Law in the neck. When Law sped off, DeLoach put his handgun in his pocket and walked away. After DeLoach was arrested, police searched his home. They recovered a pistol holster, a cell phone, and a shirt imprinted with the BMC catchphrase "R.I.P. Marvin Hills." The police found texts on DeLoach's phone that DeLoach had received after the Law shooting: "[A]ll I heard was a shot an[d] I couldn't tell if [yo]u or Pat shot [the man]." Followed by: "He[’s] dead."

After he had been arrested for Law's murder but before he had been indicted for Biggins’ murder, DeLoach told a fellow prison inmate, Trishon Collins, about how and why he had killed Biggins. Collins, who was then in jail on drug charges, initiated contact with the detectives investigating Biggins’ death, hoping that he might get leniency in his pending case for information concerning DeLoach's involvement in the Biggins shooting. In a video-recorded statement made on March 1, 2016, Collins told the detectives that DeLoach had recounted the following to him: DeLoach had seen Biggins at Frazier Homes on April 26. Later that night, DeLoach and Smith walked up to Biggins and opened fire on him. DeLoach used a 9mm handgun; Smith, a .40-caliber weapon. DeLoach shot Biggins because Biggins had previously shot him. DeLoach also told Collins that the .40-caliber handgun was "dirty" and had "a body on it," but that the police did not have the weapon. In fact, DeLoach had asked one of his "homeboys" "under him" to pass the gun on to others. DeLoach also told Collins that he was in jail on a more recent murder, but the police did not have the gun and they "only had Pat's" name.

A detective testified that the information that Collins provided him was consistent with the evidence they had so far discovered. Collins’ statement also contained information that had not been released to the media or included in any written report that may have been provided to DeLoach through the discovery process, such as the caliber of the weapons used. The detective also confirmed that DeLoach had been shot on July 14, 2014, but did not identify his shooter or cooperate with the police.

Although Collins testified at trial, he claimed that everything he had told the detectives during the interview was a lie. He testified that he had not talked to DeLoach, he was on drugs when he gave his recorded statement, and he did not receive leniency for testifying against DeLoach. In fact, when he testified at trial, Collins said that he had not yet been indicted.

Case No. S19A1299.

1. DeLoach does not dispute the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for the malice murder of Law and possession of a firearm during the commission of that felony. Nevertheless, as is this Court's practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the record and conclude that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts at issue in this appeal, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find DeLoach guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 319 (III) (B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also Vega v. State , 285 Ga. 32, 33 (1), 673 S.E.2d 223 (2009) ("It [is] for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence." (citation and punctuation omitted)).

2. DeLoach contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for a new trial on the charges related to Law's murder because his trial counsel was ineffective in two respects: (a) counsel failed to move to sever the counts involving Law from those involving Biggins, and (b) counsel failed to object or move for a mistrial when the trial court mentioned the appellate process before giving the final charge to the jury.

To prevail on his claim of ineffective...