Grier v. State

• Decision Date: 03 October 1995
• Docket Number: No. A95A0994,A95A0994
• Parties: GRIER v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 130

463 S.E.2d 130

218 Ga.App. 637

GRIER v. The STATE.

No. A95A0994.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Oct. 3, 1995.

Steven A. Hathorn, Covington, for appellant.

Alan A. Cook, District Attorney, W. Kendall Wynne, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Covington, for appellee.

McMURRAY, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was charged in separate indictments with battery, terroristic threats, and false imprisonment. The evidence adduced at his jury trial showed that defendant is the father of the 18-year-old victim's baby. On December 22, 1993, defendant came to the victim's home and ordered her to get her "[expletive] together." She was afraid if she did not comply, "he was going to jump on me there." The victim told several of defendant's cousins who were present "that [she] didn't want to go with [him, ... but they] didn't [help or] say nothing [sic]." Defendant was angry because the victim had written him "a Dear John letter and he said before he let anybody have me, he said he would kill me." Defendant took the victim and their baby to his mother's house. There, he reviled her in a "[h]ateful tone." In order to "[e]at or anything, use the bathroom[, ... defendant] told [her that she] had to ask permission." Defendant ordered the victim to bathe and made her sit in the tub for "four or five hours." After defendant allowed the victim to dress, he ordered her up to the bedroom. The victim then explained: "That's when all of it started. He started asking me questions and all that[, ... such as] who all the men that I have while he was locked up. And if I didn't answer, there was a lick, you know, he hit." Defendant struck the victim repeatedly in the face and across the head with a wooden plank or paddle. The victim did not leave the house when left alone because she was "afraid that he was going to find me and going to kill me." On December 27, 1993, the victim finally left the house with a friend who took her to the hospital. The victim confirmed that from December 22 to December 27, not "a day went by that [she was] not hit by [defendant]."

Susan Prather, the triage nurse at the hospital, recalled that the victim was trembling and shaking, and also "remember[ed] bruising on [the victim's] forehead and her face." Lieutenant Craig Treadwell of the Covington Police Department interviewed defendant and related the substance of defendant's custodial statement. There, defendant agreed that he made the victim "apologize to his mother for disgracing his mother and him." He denied striking the victim, explaining that "she fell trying to stay out of his way, that she knew to stay out of his way and she fell and hit her head on the bed and that's how she sustained her injuries."

The jury acquitted defendant of terroristic threats but found him guilty of both battery and false imprisonment. This direct appeal followed. Held:

1. In his first and third enumerations, defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his conviction for false imprisonment. He argues that the victim's testimony was repeatedly impeached and contradicted and is so "rife with inconsistencies that no reasonable jury should have believed the State had proven the elements of false imprisonment."

On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the appellant (defendant here) no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence; moreover, an appellate court does not weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility but only determines whether the evidence is sufficient under the standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560. Howard v. State, 261 Ga. 251, 252, 403 S.E.2d 204; King v. State, 213 Ga.App. 268, 269, 444 S.E.2d 381. "Conflicts in the testimony of the witnesses, including the [S]tate's witnesses, is a matter of credibility for the jury to resolve. [Cits.] As long as there is some [competent] evidence, even though contradicted, to support each fact necessary to make out the [S]tate's case, the jury's verdict will be upheld. [Cit.]" Searcy v. State, 236 Ga. 789, 790, 225 S.E.2d 311.

"A person commits the offense of false imprisonment when, in violation of the personal liberty of another, he arrests, confines, or detains such person without legal authority." OCGA § 16-5-41(a). In the case sub judice, the jury was authorized to conclude that defendant unlawfully detained the victim over five days during which period the victim's will was overborne by her fear of the brutal beatings she sustained day and night at defendant's hands. The evidence is sufficient to authorize the jury's verdict that defendant is guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of false imprisonment as alleged in the indictment. Grissom v. State, 187 Ga.App. 653(1), 654, 371 S.E.2d 137. It follows that the trial court correctly denied defendant's motion for directed verdict as to the charge of false imprisonment. McKenzie v. State, 187 Ga.App. 840(1), 371 S.E.2d 869.

2. Defendant enumerates the admission of testimony by Sabrina Pridgett, defendant's former girl friend, that defendant similarly beat her and held her in his apartment against her will in April 1989. He argues "the evidence did not sufficiently establish that [defendant] committed the independent act. Rather, [to defendant] it appears that the State's witness fabricated the story about being held in [defendant's] apartment to excuse her own conduct, [i.e.,] keeping [defendant's] baby from law enforcement and social workers."

Sabrina Pridgett testified that when she was approximately 18 years old, defendant took her and her baby ...