Duvall v. State

• Decision Date: 06 February 2012
• Docket Number: No. S11A1541.,S11A1541.
• Citation: Duvall v. State, 12 FCDR 350, 290 Ga. 475, 722 S.E.2d 62 (Ga. 2012)
• Parties: DUVALL v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

12 FCDR 350

290 Ga. 475

722 S.E.2d 62

DUVALL

v.The STATE.

No. S11A1541.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Feb. 6, 2012.

Dell Jackson, Atlanta, for appellant.

Paul L. Howard, Jr., Dist. Atty., Paige Reese Whitaker, Lenny I. Krick, Asst. Dist. Attys., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

NAHMIAS, Justice.

Appellant Bilal Duvall appeals his convictions for malice murder and firearm possession in connection with the shooting death of Silas Carter. We affirm.¹

1. The evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, showed the following. Appellant shot and killed the unarmed victim, who had argued with Appellant's brother Ali about drug-selling territory. Four eyewitnesses, three of whom had known Appellant for years, identified him at trial as the shooter. Three other eyewitnesses provided descriptions of the shooter that fit Appellant. The evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33, 673 S.E.2d 223 (2009) (“ ‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ ” (citations omitted)).

2. At trial, three witnesses testified that they knew the Appellant and his brother Ali. Appellant, however, testified to an alleged alibi and denied that he had a brother named Ali. To corroborate his testimony, Appellant called his mother, who testified that she did not have a son named Ali, adding that she did not know anyone by that name. This prompted the prosecutor to ask her on cross-examination if Appellant's father was Muslim. Defense counsel objected based on relevance, and the prosecutor explained that most of the given names of Appellant's siblings “are Muslim names. Ali's name is Muslim. That was the relevance for my question.” The trial court ruled, “Okay. And only to that point, otherwise, religion would not be a factor.” The prosecutor then asked, “Do most of the male children either their first name or middle name have a Muslim background or culture name?” When Appellant's mother said no, the prosecutor asked the derivation of her son Sahil's name, and she acknowledged, “His, I guess he is a Muslim.” The prosecutor then asked what her son Terrance's middle name was, and she replied, “Jamohan.”

(a) Appellant challenges this line of questioning as prosecutorial misconduct and also contends that the trial court abused its discretion in failing, sua sponte, to give a curative jury instruction, call a mistrial, or poll the jurors to determine the effect the questioning had on their ability to be fair and impartial. However, these claims were not raised at trial and cannot be raised for the first time on appeal. See Stephens v. State, 289 Ga. 758, 763 n. 7, 716 S.E.2d 154 (2011).

Even if we overlooked Appellant's waiver, however, these claims would fail. It is clear from the record that, in posing the questions at issue, the prosecutor was not attempting to inflame religious or other prejudice. Instead, the prosecutor was pursuing, perhaps inartfully at first, the highly relevant issue of whether Appellant's mother had lied on the witness stand about a material issue in the case, namely, whether Appellant had a brother named Ali. The State had presented evidence that it was a dispute between the victim and Ali that led Appellant to commit the crimes. In fact, one witness testified that Appellant said, “I die for my brother” before pulling a gun and shooting the victim. Indeed, the jury could conclude from this line of questioning that Appellant's mother's testimony was not credible, particularly when coupled with evidence that the police had taken a stolen handgun report from a man who identified himself as “Ali” at Appellant's mother's residence in 2002.

The prosecution did not use religion or Appellant's family names as a significant theme of its case, and after the issue emerged, the court focused the jury on the relevant issue and instructed that, “otherwise, religion would not be a factor.” The prosecutor and the court handled a relevant line of inquiry in a succinct manner and with...