Hall v. State

• Decision Date: 25 March 2013
• Docket Number: No. S13A0057.,S13A0057.
• Citation: 743 S.E.2d 6,292 Ga. 701
• Parties: HALL v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

292 Ga. 701

743 S.E.2d 6

HALL

v.The STATE.

No. S13A0057.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

March 25, 2013.

Harold D. Hall, pro se.

Peter J. Skandalakis, District Attorney, Lynda S. Caldwell, Jeffrey W. Hunt, John H. Cranford, Jr., David P. Taylor, Assistant District Attorneys, Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Brittany N. Jones, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

HUNSTEIN, Chief Justice.

A jury convicted Harold D. Hall of malice murder and robbery in connection with the beating death of 78–year–old Rachel Posey.¹He alleges that the evidence was insufficient to convict and trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. We find no reversible error and affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the evidence presented at trial shows that Walter Ratchford drove Hall to West Point on Friday, December 1, 2000, to borrow money from Posey, a friend with whom Hall had stayed in November. Hall was wearing a green windbreaker jacket, gray sweater vest, and khaki pants. Ratchford waited in the car with Roy Huguley while Hall took a lock off the fence gate and went inside Posey's house. After approximately 35 minutes, Hall came out wearing a corduroy jacket and carrying a brown plastic grocery bag that he kept with him until dropping it off later that night at Huguley's house in LaFayette, Alabama. Despite discovering that his wallet was missing, Hall repaid a $20 debt to Huguley and subsequently gave Ratchford $11 for gas and paid cash to buy crack cocaine.

Posey's swollen body was found lying face down on her kitchen floor on December 4. Posey had been struck on the head six or seven times and died from blunt force head injuries. Her purse and billfold, which was empty, were found open in her bedroom, and Hall's wallet was found on her kitchen table. There were no signs of a forced entry. Three days later, police recovered the brown plastic grocery bag containing Hall's blood-stained clothes and a padlock from the bedroom Hall had shared with Huguley. DNA testing showed that the blood on Hall's windbreaker came from Posey, the blood splatter on it was consistent with the wearer having struck Posey, and a key from Posey's key chain fit the padlock. In his pre-trial statement to police, Hall admitted that he was in Posey's house when she died, but claimed that Ratchford and Huguley killed her and then left Hall's wallet in her house. We conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found Hall guilty of murder and robbery beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Hall contends that his right to a fair trial was violated when the lead investigator, GBI Special Agent Arthez Woodruff, gave his opinion that Hall was responsible for killing the victim and improperly bolstered the testimony of the prosecution's key witnesses. “In order to raise on appeal an impropriety regarding the admissibility of evidence, the specific ground of objection must be made at the time the evidence is offered, and the failure to do so amounts to a waiver of that specific ground.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Sanchez v. State, 285 Ga. 749(3), 684 S.E.2d 251 (2009). Since Hall failed to object to the investigator's testimony at trial, these evidentiary issues were not preserved for appellate review. See Bryant v. State, 288 Ga. 876(8)(c), 708 S.E.2d 362 (2011); Allen v. State, 286 Ga. 392(4), 687 S.E.2d 799 (2010).

3. Similarly, Hall raises for the first time on appeal that the trial court abused its discretion in limiting his cross-examination of Huguley and the district attorney engaged in prosecutorial misconduct during his opening statement and closing argument. Hall's failure to make a timely objection to the trial court's ruling and the prosecutor's argument means he has also waived these issues on appeal. See Pinckney v. State, 285 Ga. 458(2), 678 S.E.2d 480 (2009); Mullins v. State, 270 Ga. 450(2), 511 S.E.2d 165 (1999).

4. Citing these and other actions by trial counsel, Hall asserts that he was denied his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. To establish a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was deficient and the deficient performance prejudiced the defense. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687(II), 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). There is a strong presumption that counsel's conduct falls within the range of sound trial strategy and reasonable professional judgment. Id. at 689, 104 S.Ct. 2052. In determining prejudice, the question is whether there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different, absent the specified errors. Id. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. A court is not required to determine “whether counsel's performance was deficient before examining the prejudice suffered by the defendant as a result of the alleged deficiencies.” Id. at 697, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Our review of the record establishes that Hall has failed to make the requisite showings to sustain his ineffectiveness claim.

(a) Hall first contends that his trial counsel's failure to object during Agent Woodruff's testimony was ineffective. Specifically, he challenges the agent's testimony during cross-examination that “my investigation leads me to believe that Mr. Harold Dean Hall killed Ms. Posey” and “[t]here's nothing in the investigation that reveals that [Huguley and Ratchford] aren't tell[ing] me the truth.” During the hearing on Hall's motion for new trial, Hall did not inquire about trial counsel's reasons for asking the questions that elicited this testimony or for failing to object to the agent's answers, which were responsive to those questions. We conclude that Hall has not overcome the strong presumption that trial counsel's actions fell within the broad range of reasonable professional conduct or affirmatively shown that the failure to object was not a conscious, deliberate trial strategy. See Morgan v. State, 275 Ga. 222(10), 564 S.E.2d 192 (2002).

(b) Hall also alleges that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to Agent Woodruff's hearsay testimony regarding the prior consistent out-of-court statements of certain witnesses. Assuming trial counsel erred in failing to make a hearsay objection during the State's examination of Agent Woodruff, see Harris v. State, 279 Ga. 522(3), 615 S.E.2d 532 (2005), we conclude that there was no prejudice. Prior to the agent's testimony, both Huguley and his mother testified that Huguley told police they had found a bag in their house that contained Hall's bloody clothes. Given that the agent's testimony was cumulative of this previous testimony, there was not a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different, absent this error. See id. at 525, 615 S.E.2d 532 (concluding it was highly probable that officer's hearsay testimony to explain his conduct, which was cumulative, did not contribute to the guilty verdicts).

(c) Hall additionally argues that trial counsel improperly elicited opinion testimony from Agent Woodruff that the bloody clothing was the most important evidence at trial. At the hearing on the motion for new trial, trial counsel explained that he asked the questions to establish credibility with the jury because the issue was like “a five-hundred-pound gorilla in the courtroom” and could not be ignored. Because this line of questioning falls within the range of reasonable trial strategy, we find no deficient performance.

(d) Next, Hall complains of trial counsel's failure to object and move for a mistrial when the trial court limited counsel's cross-examination of Huguley. In response to a question about whether he always told the truth, Huguley testified that “I probably would be lying if I said I did. I don't always tell the truth, you know.” When counsel attempted to question Huguley about how often he lied and how anyone would know when he was telling the truth, the trial court sustained the State's objection. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion in limiting this line of questioning, trial counsel did not perform deficiently in failing to object to the court's evidentiary ruling. See Wesley v. State, 286 Ga. 355(3)(a), 689 S.E.2d 280 (2010) (finding no deficient performance when trial counsel failed to make a meritless objection to an evidentiary ruling).

(e) Hall challenges trial counsel's failure to object to the district attorney's opening statement, his closing argument, and other alleged instances of prosecutorial conduct. Since the jury was instructed that the opening statement was not evidence, the prosecutor drew reasonable inferences from the evidence in his closing argument, and any factual discrepancies in the testimony of witnesses were matters for the jury, Hall has not overcome the strong presumption that trial counsel's decisions fell within the broad range of reasonable professional conduct. See Nichols v. State, 281 Ga. 483(2)(c), 640 S.E.2d 40 (2007) (defendant failed to overcome strong presumption that inaction was a strategic decision when he never asked trial counsel to explain why he did not object to prosecutor's opinion on defendant's veracity); see also Spickler v. State, 276 Ga. 164(7), 575 S.E.2d 482 (2003) (rejecting claim that prosecutor engaged in misconduct when he commented during closing argument that defendant's testimony was markedly different from his custodial statement).

(f) Hall contends that his trial counsel was ineffective in failing...