Henderson v. State
| Decision Date | 19 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | S20A0986 |
| Citation | 310 Ga. 231,850 S.E.2d 152 |
| Parties | HENDERSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Lynn M. Kleinrock, Law Office of Lynn M. Kleinrock, 3754 LaVista Road, Suite 250, Tucker, Georgia 30084, Attorneys for the Appellant.
Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Leslie Anna Coots, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Daniel Sanmiguel, A.D.A., Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office, 75 Langley Drive, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30046, Attorneys for the Appellee.
A Gwinnett County jury found Arion Henderson guilty of malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault in connection with the death of his grandfather, William Stridiron. Henderson contends that the State violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial and that his trial counsel provided constitutionally ineffective assistance in several regards. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.1
Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. After an accident, Stridiron suffered nerve damage and a spinal injury that disabled him. In December 2011, after Henderson moved in with Stridiron, Stridiron expressed concerns to his caretaker that Henderson "had a lot of rage" and was disrespectful to him. Stridiron said that his physical condition would leave him unable to defend himself in an altercation with Henderson.
Later that month, an investigator responded to a domestic violence call at Stridiron's apartment. Henderson was present when the investigator arrived and said that he and Stridiron had argued. Visibly upset, Stridiron told the investigator that Henderson disrespected him by stealing his marijuana and that he wanted Henderson to leave the apartment. After the incident, Henderson gathered his belongings and agreed to move out of the apartment. After Henderson moved out, Stridiron suspected that Henderson was sneaking into his apartment to steal food, clothes, and other items. In response, Stridiron installed new locks to prevent Henderson from accessing his apartment.
Stridiron's caretaker last saw him on Monday, January 9, 2012, and talked to him on the phone that evening after she left work. On Friday, January 13, after several unanswered calls to Stridiron, the caretaker called his apartment complex to request a welfare check. That same day, an apartment complex employee and law enforcement officer conducted a welfare check at Stridiron's apartment. Because Stridiron had recently replaced the front door lock, the key did not work, so the employee crawled into the apartment through an unlocked window. In the apartment's back bedroom, the employee found Stridiron's body lying face down and covered with a blanket. Stridiron was dead. The officer testified that it appeared as though someone had poured bleach on Stridiron's clothing.
In the apartment's entryway, a large carpet piece was missing. The employee and officer noticed blood spatter on water bottles near the missing carpet area and red drag marks going from the entryway towards the back bedroom where Stridiron's body was found.
The medical examiner testified that Stridiron had four stab wounds
to his neck and shoulder that caused his death. A weapon with one sharp edge and one blunt edge inflicted the stab wounds. The state of Stridiron's body at his autopsy indicated that at least one day had passed between his death and his body's discovery.
Officers noted an oval-shaped dust print in the shape of a television on the surface of the bedroom dresser, but there was no television in the room. Officers also found a broken six-inch steak knife blade with a missing handle in the bedroom.
Henderson spoke with officers at Stridiron's apartment. He told them that he had clothes at his friend's apartment, which was located in the building across the parking lot from Stridiron's apartment building. Henderson took the officers to the friend's apartment, pulled a suitcase from the patio closet filled with clean clothes that still had their original tags, and told the officers they could go through the suitcase. Henderson told the officers that the clothes belonged to Stridiron.
Henderson told an officer that he had an alibi for January 9 and 10 because he was staying with Anthony Miller. Henderson then gave the officer an incorrect phone number for Miller. When the officer went to Miller's apartment to speak with him, the officer saw Henderson leaving the same apartment. Miller agreed to speak with the officer and got into the officer's car. While Miller and the officer were speaking, Henderson appeared antsy, walking back and forth, moving in and out of Miller's apartment.
At trial, Miller testified that, at the time he spoke to law enforcement in January 2012, he had just met Henderson in the neighborhood through his cousin. Miller met Henderson the week before Stridiron's death on January 4, hung out with him on January 5, and did not see him at all on January 6. Contrary to Henderson's claims, Henderson did not stay with Miller on January 9 or 10, which were the Monday and Tuesday during the week of Stridiron's death. On January 11, Henderson told Miller that he had an argument with Stridiron and pushed him and that Stridiron had hit his head and stopped moving. On January 12, Henderson left Miller's apartment in the early morning and went back to Stridiron's apartment. Miller also bought a $150 television from Henderson, which Henderson claimed belonged to him.
On January 12, after Henderson visited Stridiron's apartment, Miller and Henderson rode around in Stridiron's van. Miller drove the van and picked up some friends who stayed at his apartment. Miller and Henderson parked the van in front of Stridiron's apartment. On the morning of Friday, January 13, Miller and Henderson noticed crime scene tape around Stridiron's apartment building. Henderson went to check on Stridiron, and Miller returned to his apartment. When Henderson came back to Miller's apartment, he told Miller not to say anything about the television to law enforcement and to hide the television in the closet. Officers arrived at Miller's apartment about ten minutes later.
In Miller's apartment, officers found a television covered with a blanket. The television's size matched the size of the dust print on Stridiron's bedroom dresser. Henderson told officers that he last saw Stridiron in December, when the police responded to their argument about Stridiron's marijuana.
Officers searched the dumpster outside Stridiron's apartment complex and found the following items: the same type of trash bags and latex gloves as those in Stridiron's apartment; knives similar to the knife blade found in the apartment; a bloody knife handle wrapped in a paper towel and white tape; and one double-bound trash bag that contained a bloodstained carpet piece that matched the carpet from Stridiron's apartment.
Despite Henderson's claim that he had not been in Stridiron's van or apartment since he moved out a month earlier, officers found Henderson's "fresh" fingerprints on the GPS screen and exterior mirror of Stridiron's van, and a "fresh" palm print on a Chinese takeout menu in Stridiron's trash. They also found Henderson's fingerprints on the television in Miller's apartment. However, officers were unable to locate Stridiron's cell phone, wallet, and car keys during the investigation. The State also presented evidence suggesting that Henderson had withdrawn money from Stridiron's bank account during the week of his death.2
DNA testing revealed that Stridiron and Henderson's DNA profiles were on the knife's handle and that Stridiron's DNA was on the knife's blade. The volume of epithelial skin cells found on the knife's handle matching Henderson was sufficient for the crime lab to secure a full DNA profile. An expert in forensic serology testified that this indicated that Henderson must have had more than casual or brief contact with the knife handle. The expert testified that, to have Henderson's full DNA profile on the handle, he must have held the handle for "quite a bit."
Henderson does not challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for malice murder, the only crime of which he was convicted. Nevertheless, it is our customary practice in murder cases to review the record independently to determine whether the evidence was legally sufficient with regard to the offenses of which the appellant was convicted.3 Having done so, we conclude that the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Henderson guilty of malice murder. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
Henderson contends that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was denied. We disagree.
The United States Constitution guarantees that, "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial," U.S. Const. amend. VI. Likewise, the Georgia Constitution protects this same right: "[i]n criminal cases, the defendant shall have a public and speedy trial[.]" Ga. Const. of 1983, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XI (a).
In ruling on a defendant's constitutional speedy trial claim, the analysis proceeds in two stages. A trial court's threshold inquiry is "whether the interval from the accused's arrest, indictment, or other formal accusation to the trial is sufficiently long to be considered presumptively prejudicial." Ruffin v. State , 284 Ga. 52, 55, 663 S.E.2d 189 (2008). If not, the speedy trial claim fails at this threshold. See id.
However, if the delay is deemed presumptively prejudicial, the trial...
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