Hinton v. State
| Decision Date | 12 June 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. S06A0459.,S06A0459. |
| Citation | 631 S.E.2d 365,280 Ga. 811 |
| Parties | HINTON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Brenda Joy Bernstein, The Bernstein Firm, P.C., Atlanta, for Appellant.
Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, Dist. Atty., John H. Petrey, Leonora Grant, Asst. Dist. Attys., Decatur, GA, Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., Vonnetta Leatrice Benjamin, Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, GA, for Appellee.
Colvin C. Hinton, III, appeals his conviction for the murder of Shannon Melendi.1 Viewed in a light favorable to the verdict (Harvey v. State, 274 Ga. 350(2), 554 S.E.2d 148 (2001)), the evidence at trial showed the following. Melendi was an Emory University student who worked part-time at the Softball Country Club (SBCC) in DeKalb County where Hinton, employed by Delta Airlines as a maintenance utility employee, also worked part-time as an umpire. On March 26, 1994, Hinton umpired a game at which Melendi worked as scorekeeper. Several players complained that Hinton neglected his duties in that game to look at and converse with Melendi. After several games, Hinton left SBCC around 12:45 p.m. and Melendi departed in the same direction five minutes later. She was never seen alive after that day and her body has never been found. Her car, of which she was very proud and took great care, was found later at a nearby gas station, parked crookedly and left unlocked with the keys in the ignition. An employee of the station reported seeing Melendi there on the day she disappeared.
Hinton had been scheduled to work a full day at SBCC on March 26, but after he learned the day before that his wife would be out of town that day, he made other arrangements. He first called his wife's best friend and arranged to meet her that Saturday afternoon, telling her it was important that she not tell anyone where she was going or who she was meeting, and assuring her his wife would be there, too. Hinton then called another umpire and asked him to cover the afternoon and evening games because he had a "hot date." When the other umpire was unable to accommodate him, Hinton called the umpire supervisor and told her he needed the afternoon off to care for the children of his sister-in-law who had been hospitalized by a beating from her husband. As he left SBCC's clubhouse on March 26, he told another umpire he was going on a date with a woman who was "hot."
Hinton reappeared at SBCC between 2:30 and 3:00 that afternoon and was also seen around that time at the gas station where Melendi's car was found. He entered the clubhouse in an umpire's uniform and left a few minutes later in other clothes. He claimed then he was getting ready to play, but was seen shortly thereafter by the same witness headed for the clubhouse. Another witness saw Hinton around 5 p.m. and remarked he thought Hinton had left, to which Hinton replied he had forgotten to turn in a pay slip and had returned to do so. However, Hinton claimed to have just arrived, but had no pay slip in his hand, and asked the witness whether he knew where Hinton had parked his car. This witness testified that after Hinton became a suspect, they had a conversation in which the witness asked why Hinton had not told the FBI about returning to the SBCC and seeing the witness, to which Hinton responded by asking the witness to disregard the information because it did not match what he told the FBI. Hinton made several telephone calls that afternoon from his Clayton County home, the first less than 40 minutes after his departure from the SBCC, a 25-minute drive from his home. He was seen tending a bonfire in his yard around 3:00 a.m. the next morning, and borrowed a bow saw from his father later that morning, a saw subsequently seized from his home in a search. Searches of Hinton's home revealed three pits buried in the back yard, one of which contained wire ties that could be used to bind wrists and ankles. A black bag like one Hinton was seen carrying on the day Melendi disappeared was also found.
The police initially treated Melendi's disappearance as a possible runaway case and released her car to her roommate without processing it for evidence. Family and friends, however, believed she would not have left them without any word and testified extensively at trial to her strong relationships with friends and family. Posters were put up and media outlets were enlisted to seek information. Three days after her disappearance, a man calling the DeKalb Police Department phone number on the posters correctly identified the color of the shorts Melendi was wearing as blue instead of green as the media had reported and said in a harsh and angry voice that he "got" the victim at the station and would keep her until he was through with her. In early April, a man called the Emory University Counseling Center to say he had Melendi, she was healthy, and he would call later with his demands. He claimed to have a ring of Melendi's and mentioned masking tape. Led by "Caller ID" to the pay phone from which the call was made, an FBI agent found the ring in a small cloth bag wrapped in masking tape. The bag was traced to the manufacturer who said Delta was its only customer in Georgia. That type bag was used in the facility where Hinton worked, as was the type of masking tape used. Particles of metal found on the tape wrapping the bag with the ring were also found on a fragment of tape in Hinton's car and were a combination of metal debris found only in environments involving jet engine maintenance and repair. A waitress at a restaurant near the payphone testified Hinton was a regular customer there.
After he became a suspect, Hinton attempted to get another Delta employee to get him a "pass card ticket" and sought to borrow a suit from another employee because pass card tickets could not be used unless the employee was wearing a suit. However, news media reported Hinton's status as a suspect that night and he never returned to work at Delta.
Evidence of two prior criminal occurrences were introduced as similar transactions. In one, Hinton went to his employer's home in Kentucky and assaulted and attempted to restrain with rope the employer's wife who persuaded him to let her go by promising not to call the police, which she did immediately after he released her and left. An FBI agent testified Hinton told him he had attempted to rape his employer's wife and that he was treated as a juvenile and given psychiatric treatment. In the second incident, while living in Illinois, Hinton lured his younger brother's former girlfriend to a meeting with a lie about his brother being in town, restrained her with rope, abducted her, sexually fondled her, and imprisoned her in his basement, from which she was released when Hinton's wife found her there. Hinton was charged with kidnapping and indecent liberties with a minor and served a prison term.
Convicted in federal court in 1996 of mail fraud and using a fire to commit a felony, both arising from the September 1994 burning of his house in Clayton County, Hinton was sentenced to a prison term of more than ten years. Several persons Hinton met while in federal prison testified to statements he made to them during his incarceration there. Adonis Cornwell testified that after he was awakened in the cell he shared with Hinton by a scream and found Hinton crying, Hinton told him that he had not killed her, the demon inside him had; that the girl worked at a softball park and her car was found nearby with the keys in it. Curtis O'Neal testified that after he mentioned he knew someone charged with murder even though no body was found, Hinton asked O'Neal to show him how to research in the law library cases in which no body was found, and later asked him to sign an affidavit that they had not discussed his case. Allen Howell testified Hinton was worried he would be indicted for Melendi's death because his score book had been left in her car and he had previous offenses and that he had been burning a lot of brush and wanted to know what would be left after a body was burned. Johnny Pleasants testified that when he told Hinton gambling was his weakness, Hinton said young girls were his. Hinton told Pleasants he was a suspect in the disappearance of a girl who worked at the same ballpark at which he had been an umpire; that she reminded him of a woman he had an affair with in Kentucky years earlier, and the authorities suspected him because they were aware of that situation; that he wasn't worried about them finding a body; and that he could be forgiven no matter what he had done. Anthony Olivaria testified he heard Hinton say while praying that if Moses could be forgiven for murder, he could, too. Ronson Westmoreland testified Hinton said he and Melendi left the softball park in her car, which was later left at a gas station; that the police were stupid to have released the car without searching it; that the victim was a tease; that her body had been scattered to the wind; that the best way to dispose of a body was to cut it up, crush the bones, and throw the pieces in a river; that he was a butcher; and that God will forgive murder.
1. In three enumerations of error, Hinton contends the evidence as a whole was insufficient and, specifically, the evidence was insufficient to establish venue in DeKalb County. With regard to venue, which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt as an element of the offense (Turner v. State, 273 Ga. 340(3), 541 S.E.2d 641 (2001)), the evidence summarized above, particularly the evidence that Hinton and Melendi left the SBCC within five minutes of each other after Hinton had spent an inappropriate amount of the softball game they worked talking to Melendi, that her car was found abandoned at a gas station adjacent to the SBCC, that a person whose voice characteristics matched Hinton said on the telephone he had taken Melendi at "the station,"...
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...on the special demurrer, as well as Bullard’s enumeration of error with respect to Count 6, are moot on appeal. See Hinton v. State , 280 Ga. 811, 815, 631 S.E.2d 365 (2006).4 The special demurrer was filed on December 10, 2013, which was 20 days after Bullard waived formal arraignment and ......
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