Gibbs v. State

• Decision Date: 22 April 2014
• Docket Number: No. S14A0230.,S14A0230.
• Citation: 757 S.E.2d 842,295 Ga. 92
• Parties: GIBBS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

295 Ga. 92

757 S.E.2d 842

GIBBS

v.The STATE.

No. S14A0230.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

April 22, 2014.

Sara E. Meyers, Thomson, for appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Dep. Atty. Gen., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Ryan A. Kolb, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Madonna Marie Little, Asst. Dist. Atty., Rebecca Ashley Wright, Dist. Atty., Augusta, for appellee.

HINES, Presiding Justice.

Following the denial of his motion for new trial, as amended, Carl Gibbs appeals his convictions for malice murder, armed robbery, and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime in connection with the fatal beating and shooting of Judson Pilcher Boyd. His sole challenge is that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of the crimes. The evidentiary challenge is without merit; however, it was error to sentence Gibbs on both of the firearm possession counts. Accordingly, we affirm in part, and vacate in part.¹

The evidence construed to support the verdicts showed the following. Between 9:00 and 9:40 p.m. on January 9, 2009, several residents of Fairmont Street in Augusta heard their neighbor, Gibbs's mother MargaretGibbs (“Margaret”), screaming for help. Margaret lived with her longtime boyfriend, 68–year–old Judson Pilcher Boyd. Around 8:30 p.m., before hearing Margaret's screams for help, a neighbor saw a car, either a Crown Victoria or a Grand Marquis, parked near Boyd's home. Responding to Margaret's cries for help, the neighbors entered the home and found Boyd's body; a bullet hole in Boyd's head was visible. Boyd died as the result of blunt force injury and a close-range gunshot to the head.

Police arrived on the scene to find Boyd's body lying behind a recliner; one of his pockets was pulled out, as if someone had reached into the pocket and taken its contents. Boyd routinely carried large amounts of cash, but only family members were aware of this fact. The recliner was covered in blood, and there was blood spatter on “just about every surface” in the L-shaped living room area. Otherwise the home was neat and there was no sign that it had been ransacked, nor were there any signs of forced entry. A nine millimeter shell casing was found under the dining room table and an open and empty box for a nine millimeter pistol was discovered on top of a bed in a rear bedroom near a night stand with its drawer open.

As part of the investigation of the crime scene, Margaret's car was searched and in it were found two large sandwich bags filled with a form of the prescription drug Percocet and shoe boxes containing approximately $66,000 in cash. When Gibbs was arrested, he had a sandwich bag in his jacket pocket, consistent with the bags of pills found at Boyd's residence and filled with various prescription pills, including Percocet. Also in the jacket was $1,715 in cash with one bill bearing a bloodstain. When taken into custody, Gibbs's hands were bruised and one hand had a slight cut.

Around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. on the day Boyd was killed, Gibbs and his girlfriend, Sherry Bailey, drove Bailey's Grand Marquis to a bar located about a mile from Boyd's home. Gibbs had not worked in a few weeks, and he then did not have much money. About 6:00 or 7:00 p.m., Gibbs left the bar in the Grand Marquis and did not return until 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. Gibbs told Bailey that he was going to South Carolina, although he later admitted this was untrue.

At the time of the crimes, Gibbs was living with Bailey. Bailey consented to a search of her residence, and the police found a pair of bloodstained jeans belonging to Gibbs. Bloodstains were also found on various parts of the Grand Marquis. A DNA analysis confirmed that Boyd's blood matched the bloodstains on the jeans and those in the car's driver's seat. Processing of Gibbs's blood-stained jeans revealed that it bore “impact stains,” which result from blood “flying through the air” and landing on the jeans. An expert in bloodstain pattern analysis examined photographs of both the crime scene and Gibbs's jeans. At trial, the expert testified that the fatal incident began by Boyd being beaten behind the recliner, with the attack progressing to the recliner, causing it to fall backwards to the floor; Boyd was then still alive and was on the floor behind the recliner where he sustained more blows and then the fatal gunshot wound. The expert further testified that the bloodstains on Gibbs's jeans were primarily of medium and high velocity; that medium velocity stains could be caused only by significant blunt force trauma; that both medium and high velocity impact stains could not be created without the application of a significant amount of force; and that shaking blood off of one's hands would produce only low velocity impact stains.

Gibbs testified at trial that the cash found on him at the time of his arrest was money he had earned from construction work and had hidden from Bailey in the trunk of his car so that Bailey would not spend it; that the bruising or scratches found on his hands were the result of roofing work he had done a couple of weeks prior to the crimes; he left the bar in the early part of the evening of the fatal shooting to go to Boyd's residence to “check on” Boyd and then to “get [himself] a couple of Percocets and go back to the bar”; when he went inside the residence, he found Boyd lying in the living room; he “got on [his] hands and knees” to see if he could help Boyd; he checked Boyd's wrist for a pulse, and put his ear to Boyd's chest and his hand under Boyd's nose to try and detect a heartbeat or...