Guzman-Perez v. State

• Decision Date: 21 December 2020
• Docket Number: S20A1102
• Citation: 310 Ga. 573,853 S.E.2d 76
• Parties: GUZMAN-PEREZ v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

310 Ga. 573

853 S.E.2d 76

GUZMAN-PEREZ

v.The STATE.

S20A1102

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: December 21, 2020

Lynn M. Kleinrock, for appellant.

Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Samuel R. d'Entremont, Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Mark S. Lindemann, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Melton, Chief Justice.

Following a jury trial, Appellant, Fernando Guzman-Perez, was convicted of malice murder and concealing the death of another in connection with the death of his wife, Yamilet Rodriguez.¹ On appeal, Appellant argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his murder conviction and that he was denied constitutionally effective assistance of counsel. We affirm.

1. Appellant contends that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain his murder conviction because the evidence of his guilt was entirely circumstantial and did not rule out a reasonable hypothesis consistent with his innocence. We disagree.

It is well settled that, when evaluating the sufficiency of evidence as a matter of constitutional due process, "the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." (Citation and emphasis omitted.) Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). "This Court does not reweigh evidence or resolve conflicts in testimony; instead, evidence is reviewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, with deference to the [factfinder's] assessment of the weight and credibility of the evidence." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hayes v. State , 292 Ga. 506, 506, 739 S.E.2d 313 (2013).

Viewed in this light, the evidence presented at trial showed that, prior to Rodriguez's death, Appellant had been complaining to his friends and co-workers that he was unsatisfied with the lack of intimacy in his marriage. After midnight on Wednesday, October 7, 2015, Rodriguez, along with her neighbor and co-worker, Victor Ruiz, returned home to their two-story apartment building after finishing their workday. Appellant and Rodriguez lived in an apartment on the top floor of the building, and Ruiz lived in an apartment on the first floor next to the stairwell. Rodriguez and Ruiz returned to their respective apartments, and Ruiz stayed up for a couple of hours to watch television. He heard no noise in the stairwell that he shared with Appellant and Rodriguez.

The next day, Appellant walked down to Ruiz's apartment and asked him if he had seen Rodriguez. Appellant remarked that she might have left with another man. Ruiz told Appellant he had not seen Rodriguez since they had returned home from work. Later that same day, Appellant called Otoniel Garduno, the pastor of his church, and asked for contact information for a new pediatrician. During this conversation, Appellant made no mention of his wife's disappearance. On Sunday, October 11, Appellant took his and Rodriguez's children to church without their mother. When Pastor Garduno inquired into her whereabouts, Appellant said that she had left him and their children.

On the morning of October 12, the couple's children, Rodriguez's sisters, and Pastor Garduno and his wife all gathered at Appellant's home and urged him to inform the police that Rodriguez was missing. Appellant initially refused, claiming that he did not want to get Rodriguez in trouble as she had prior charges of abandonment of their children. Instead, Appellant led the group on a search for Rodriguez, stopping at nearby jails, a motel near the family home, and her place of work, but they failed to locate her or obtain any new information as to her whereabouts. After this, the group finally convinced Appellant to report that his wife was missing.

When the police responded to Appellant's missing person call on the afternoon of October 12, Appellant informed officers that Rodriguez had left a few days prior, after the couple had an argument.

During the investigation into the missing person report, Appellant consented to a search of the couple's apartment. Officers noted nothing out of the ordinary during their search. They asked Appellant additional questions, and he told them, once again, that Rodriguez left after an argument, this time mentioning that she had taken a debit card and $1,700 with her.

Then, on Thursday, October 15, Appellant's boss at Express Oil Change was removing a stack of tires in a wooded area next to the dumpsters behind the store, when he noticed a pungent smell coming from an orange garbage bag behind the tires. He noted that the bag did not come from the shop because they only used black trash bags. He then called the police. Responding officers located Rodriguez's decomposing body inside the orange bag.

Dr. Carol Terry, the State's medical examiner, performed the autopsy of Rodriguez and testified at trial that her body was wrapped in four separate garbage bags. The first layer contained two garbage bags, one pulled up from the feet and one pulled down from the head, with tape holding Rodriguez's body in the fetal position and wrapped tightly around her neck. Rodriguez's body was then placed into two additional garbage bags.

Dr. Terry found a single blunt force injury to the back of Rodriguez's neck, which, Dr. Terry opined, was not sufficient to have caused Rodriguez's death. Rodriguez's body had signs of significant decomposition including bloating, discoloration, and skin slippage. And, due to the severe decomposition of the body, Dr. Terry could not determine with any certainty the cause of death. However, given the state in which Rodriguez's body was found, Dr. Terry opined that the manner of death was homicide.

Officers obtained a search warrant for the couple's shared residence, and, during this second search, they located orange trash bags. A forensic analyst matched the bags used to conceal Rodriguez's body to the roll of garbage bags found in Appellant's home. Officers also found bloodstains in the trunk of Appellant's car, which were later matched to Rodriguez.

Appellant was taken into custody and brought to the Lawrenceville Police Department for questioning. There, he told officers that Rodriguez arrived home from work on October 7 and that the couple showered together. Appellant wanted to have sex, but Rodriguez refused. Appellant tried to make advances again when the couple was in bed, and Rodriguez became annoyed. Appellant told officers that Rodriguez got out of bed, changed clothes, and left after the couple had an argument. Appellant stated that he did not follow Rodriguez at that time.

When officers confronted Appellant with the orange trash bags and the victim's body, his head dropped, and he began to cry. Appellant then told police that he did chase after Rodriguez when she left the apartment, and that when he tried to stop her at the top of the staircase, she moved to avoid his grasp and fell down the stairwell. Appellant said that he ran down the stairs and checked Rodriguez for a pulse but was unable to find one. Appellant became nervous that law enforcement would not believe what happened, so he wrapped the victim's body in garbage bags, drove to the Express Oil Change, and left Rodriguez there.

Regarding Appellant's claim that the evidence was constitutionally insufficient to support his murder conviction, based on the evidence presented at trial, the jury was authorized to find Appellant guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson , 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781.²

Appellant further alleges that, because the State's case was based solely on circumstantial evidence, and because he presented a "reasonable" hypothesis of his innocence as it pertained to the murder charge that the State did not discredit, the evidence was insufficient to support his murder conviction pursuant to OCGA § 24-14-6. "In cases like this one where convictions are based on circumstantial evidence, the evidence must be ‘consistent with the hypothesis of guilt’ and ‘exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.’ " Collett v. State , 305 Ga. 853, 855 (1), 828 S.E.2d 362 (2019) (quoting OCGA § 24-14-6 ). Whether the evidence excludes every other reasonable hypothesis is a question for the factfinder. See id. "Not every hypothesis is reasonable, and the evidence does not have to exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis; it need rule out only those that are reasonable." (Citation omitted.) Akhimie v. State , 297 Ga. 801, 804 (1), 777 S.E.2d 683 (2015). Where a rational fact finder is authorized to find that the evidence ruled out all other reasonable hypotheses, that finding will not be disturbed on appeal unless the verdict is insupportable as a matter of law. Id.

Appellant claims that the State's evidence did not exclude the reasonable hypothesis that Rodriguez simply fell down the stairs and that Appellant did not cause her death. We disagree. The evidence at trial showed that Appellant had been complaining that he was unsatisfied with the intimate relationship he had with his wife prior to her death, and that Rodriguez died after a fight with her husband about this very topic. Appellant consistently lied to family, friends, law enforcement, and a religious leader as to his wife's whereabouts. Furthermore, he denied involvement in her injuries and the concealing of her death until confronted with physical...