Hood v. State

• Citation: 786 S.E.2d 648,299 Ga. 95
• Decision Date: 23 May 2016
• Docket Number: No. S16A0064.,S16A0064.
• Parties: HOOD v. The STATE.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

299 Ga. 95

786 S.E.2d 648

HOOD

v.The STATE.

No. S16A0064.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

May 23, 2016.

Edward Hunt Brumby, Jr., Athens, for appellant.

Kenneth W. Mauldin, Dist. Atty., Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Atty. Gen. Paula Khristian Smith, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Jon Richard Forwood, Asst. Dist. Atty., Brian Vance Patterson, Asst. Dist. Atty., Vicki S. Bass, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

NAHMIAS

, Justice.

Appellant James Hood appeals his convictions for felony murder and other crimes in connection with the stabbing death of Christopher Coon. Two of Appellant's three claims on appeal raise issues under Georgia's new Evidence Code that this Court has not previously addressed. Concluding that the trial court committed no reversible error, we affirm.¹

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. Shortly after midnight on February 1, 2011, Coon called his friend Shane Harrelson to pick him up to hang out together. While they were driving around Athens, Coon asked Harrelson if he knew anyone who had prescription pain pills for sale. Harrelson gave Appellant's phone number to Coon, who called Appellant at 3:09 a.m. and said he was on his way to Appellant's house to buy pills. Harrelson parked around the corner from Appellant's house and stayed in the car while Coon went to the house. Coon had several hundred dollars in his possession.

At 3:31 a.m., Appellant's wife, Briana Hood, called 911 to report that a man had broken into their house and that “[t]his dude tried to run out with our pills and I stabbed him.” When police officers arrived at the house, they found Coon lying face down by the front door with stab wounds

on his neck, chest, and abdomen. There was a pair of brass knuckles on the ground near Coon, and Briana said that Coon had punched her with them; her nose was broken. Appellant had broken toes on one foot and blood on his hands and arms. There were bloodstains in the living room by the front door, but the rest of the first floor was orderly and showed no signs of a disturbance. The police found bloodstained oxycodone pills and cash hidden in Appellant's upstairs bedroom. They also found multiple bottles of pain pills, including oxycodone, which had been prescribed to Appellant by multiple doctors for his sickle cell anemia.

Coon was taken to the hospital but was dead on arrival. An autopsy determined that he had been stabbed five times and that the wounds

to his neck and lower abdomen were fatal injuries. The medical examiner was unable to sequence the stab wounds

or to determine whether more than one knife was used. Coon had defensive wounds, and his blood tested positive for oxycodone, amphetamine, and methamphetamine.

A few hours after the stabbing, Appellant and Briana went to the police station to give statements. Sergeant Jerry Saulters interviewed Briana first, then Appellant. Sgt. Saulters found that their stories were inconsistent, so he interviewed them each again and had them make written statements.² In his statements that day, Appellant said the following. He and Briana were in bed upstairs when they heard a knock on their front door, which Appellant went downstairs to answer. When he saw no one through the peephole, Appellant began to open the door. Coon then forced his way inside, breaking Appellant's bare toes with the door. Coon began punching Briana with brass knuckles and saying “where are the pills?” Coon then grabbed a bottle of pills off Appellant's coffee table and ran. Appellant and Briana fought with Coon to get the pills back; the fight began in the living room, moved to the kitchen when Coon tried to leave through the back door, and then moved back to the living room. Briana stabbed Coon when they were back in the living room by the front door. In his first interview, Appellant said that only Briana had stabbed Coon, and in his second interview Appellant said that Briana had both knives, but in his written statement he admitted that he also had a knife. Appellant denied having a cell phone. He and Briana were allowed to go home after their interviews.

The next day, Appellant came back to the police station, asking for the police to return the oxycodone pills found at his house, but the officers explained that they could not release that evidence. Appellant then agreed to walk the police through his house to explain what happened during the encounter with Coon. His story remained largely consistent, except that he mentioned the money the police had found hidden in his bedroom for the first time, saying first that it was his money but then that it might have been the victim's. At the end of the walk-through, Appellant gave the officers a contact cell phone number, which was the number Coon had used to call Appellant.

A few days later, Appellant and Briana went to the police station and asked to speak to Sgt. Saulters. The officer went over Appellant's prior written statement with him and noted inconsistencies with the crime scene and Briana's statement. Appellant initially stuck to his home invasion story, but he eventually conceded that the story was false and admitted that Coon came to the house to buy prescription drugs. Appellant then gave the following new account of what happened that night. He did not know Coon, so he put an opened folding knife in his back pocket before letting Coon into the house. When Coon came inside, he asked Appellant for 20 pills, which Appellant went upstairs to retrieve. Appellant and Coon then began counting out the pills and money at the kitchen table. When Coon disputed the price for the pills, an argument began. Coon refused to pay Appellant, took the pills, and ran toward the front door. Appellant and Briana outran Coon to the door, locked it, and began fighting with him. Both Appellant and Briana had knives, while Coon was unarmed. After the fight, Appellant planted the brass knuckles near Coon's body and hid the bloodstained pills and cash upstairs before emergency personnel arrived.

When viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted and sentenced. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979)

. See also Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33, 673 S.E.2d 223 (2009) (“ ‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ ” (citation omitted)).

2. Appellant contends that the trial court erred by refusing to allow him to recall Sgt. Saulters to testify about a prior inconsistent statement made by Erin Kaiser. Pretrial investigation by Appellant's counsel showed that Kaiser, an acquaintance of Coon, had given a statement to Sgt. Saulters about a prior incident when Coon stole pills from a different prescription pill dealer. At trial, Kaiser was called by Appellant and testified that on December 31, 2010, she drove Coon and another person who had money to the pill dealer's home. Coon and the other person then stole pills from the dealer and returned to her car. As they drove away, they were chased by the dealer. On redirect examination, Appellant asked Kaiser if she remembered telling Sgt. Saulters that Coon's accomplice came along to show the dealer that they had money to buy the pills and that once they showed the money, Coon stole the pills and ran out of the house. Kaiser said she did not remember saying that because she was under the influence of drugs when she gave the statement to Sgt. Saulters. Appellant then asked to recall Sgt. Saulters to testify to the content of Kaiser's statement. The trial court denied the request, ruling that Kaiser's statement was “collateral.”

Georgia's new Evidence Code took effect on January 1, 2013, less than three months before Appellant's trial began. On the issue of admitting extrinsic evidence of a witness's prior inconsistent statement, OCGA § 24–6–613(b)

substantially adopted the language of Federal Rule of Evidence 613(b) as it read in 2011; to the extent the new Georgia evidence rules borrow from the text of the federal evidence rules in this way, we look for guidance to the decisions of federal appellate courts, particularly the Eleventh Circuit, interpreting the federal rules. See State v. Frost, 297 Ga. 296, 299, 773 S.E.2d 700 (2015). See also Parker v. State, 296 Ga. 586, 592 & n. 10, 769 S.E.2d 329 (2015).

The failure of a witness to remember making a statement, like the witness's flat denial of the statement, may provide the foundation for calling another witness to prove that the statement was made. See United States v. Billue, 994 F.2d 1562, 1565–1566 (11th Cir.1993)

. However, federal courts including the Eleventh Circuit have also held—as Georgia courts did under our old Evidence Code—that prior inconsistent statements cannot be introduced through extrinsic evidence if they are irrelevant or collateral to the subject matter of the case. See, e.g., United States v. Russell, 717 F.2d 518, 520 (11th Cir.1983) (“The Federal Rules of Evidence discourage the admission of extrinsic evidence to prove or disprove issues which are collateral to the subject matter of the case.”); United States v. Roulette, 75 F.3d 418, 423 (8th Cir.1996) (“[U]nder [Rule] 613(b) a witness may not be impeached on a collateral matter by use of extrinsic evidence of prior inconsistent statements.”). See also Wynn v. State, 272 Ga. 861, 862, 535 S.E.2d 758 (2000) (affirming the exclusion of a prior inconsistent statement under the old Evidence Code because it “was irrelevant to the issues to be considered by the trier of fact” (citing Duckworth v. State, 268 Ga. 566, 567, 492 S.E.2d 201 (1997) )). Thus, although aspects of Georgia's Evidence Code dealing with prior inconsistent statements used to impeach have changed, the...