Ingram v. State

• Decision Date: 07 February 2005
• Docket Number: No. S05A0435.,S05A0435.
• Citation: Ingram v. State, 279 Ga. 132, 610 S.E.2d 21 (Ga. 2005)
• Parties: INGRAM v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

610 S.E.2d 21

279 Ga. 132

INGRAM v. The STATE.

No. S05A0435.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

February 7, 2005.

Reconsideration Denied March 28, 2005.

William R. Folsom, Valdosta, for Appellant.

J. David Miller, District Attorney, Robert T. Gilchrist, Justo C. Cabral, III, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Julie A. Adams, Assistant Attorney General, for Appellee.

HUNSTEIN, Justice.

Julius A. Ingram was convicted of malice murder, aggravated assault and concealing the death of another arising out of the strangulation killing of Christopher Robinson while both men were inmates at Valdosta State Prison.¹ He appeals contending that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict and that the aggravated assault conviction should have merged into the murder conviction. For the reasons that follow we affirm in part and vacate in part.

1. The jury was authorized to find that appellant together with co-defendants Tallman (who was the victim's cellmate) and McCoy decided to rob and murder the victim. On June 26, 2004, the victim spoke with other inmates around 11:00 p.m. before returning to his cell. Just before the lock down of the cells at 11:30 p.m. other inmates observed appellant, McCoy and Tallman in the cell with the victim, who was positioned under covers in his bunk as though asleep. After lockdown, appellant's cellmate saw appellant with a gold chain and cross the victim always wore. The victim's death was discovered the following morning. Later that day appellant attempted to sell the victim's chain to another inmate. When confronted by the other inmates, appellant admitted that he killed the victim and threatened to kill another inmate "just like I killed him." In statements the co-defendants gave police, they admitted that they took turns choking the victim until he died and that the three men then placed the victim's body on his bunk and pulled the covers over him.

This evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury to find appellant guilty of malice murder and aggravated assault beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The evidence was also sufficient to authorize the conviction for concealing the death of another because appellant's act in placing the victim's body in his bunk and pulling the covers over him "prevented others from finding the victim and thereby hindered the discovery of whether the victim was unlawfully killed. [Cits.]" Mitchell v. State, 274 Ga. 768, 770(1), 560 S.E.2d 8 (2002). See also Crawford v. State, 267 Ga. 881, 882, 485 S.E.2d 461 (1997) (affirming concealment of death conviction where defendant misrepresented to concerned persons knocking at victim's apartment door that "everything was fine").

2. Appellant correctly asserts and the district attorney properly concedes that the conviction for aggravated assault merged as a matter of fact into the murder conviction. Although the first attempt to strangle the victim to death may have rendered him merely unconscious,² the evidence at trial established that this assault was not a separate and complete criminal act but rather was part of a continuous criminal act, committed at the same time and place and inspired by the same criminal intent. Thus, unlike cases such as Stockford v. State, 276 Ga. 241(3), 575 S.E.2d 889 (2003) and Lowe v. State, 267 Ga. 410(1)(b), 478 S.E.2d 762 (1996), where a deliberate interval existed between the assaults that indicated the completion of one criminal act before the start of a separate criminal act, the unintended interval here did not signal the completion of a separate criminal act but signified only the temporary failure to accomplish the one intentional criminal transaction. See Montes v. State, ...