Intemann v. State
| Decision Date | 22 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | A20A1870 |
| Citation | 855 S.E.2d 666,358 Ga.App. 488 |
| Parties | INTEMANN v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Kathryn Roberta Elwart, for Appellant.
Joyette M. Holmes, District Attorney, Linda J. Dunikoski, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
A Cobb County jury found Christopher Jordan Intemann guilty of three counts of armed robbery and three counts of aggravated assault, and the trial court denied his motion for new trial. On appeal, Intemann raises several claims of error. First, Intemann argues that the trial court erred in admitting posts from a Twitter account that he maintains were attributed to him without proper authentication. Second, Intemann contends that the trial court erred in allowing a detective to testify about the manner in which Internet protocol ("IP") addresses work without requiring the State to properly qualify him as an expert. Third, Intemann asserts that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object when the State introduced evidence of his invocation of his right to counsel during his police interview; by failing to object to jury instructions on the law of conspiracy and party to a crime; and by failing to object on hearsay grounds to testimony from a detective about research into a phone number associated with an online advertisement. For the reasons discussed below, we conclude that Intemann has failed to show reversible error by the trial court or that his trial counsel was ineffective. We therefore affirm.
The Robberies. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict,1 the evidence showed that the armed robberies in this case occurred after victims responded to advertisements for the sale of electronics posted online on Craigslist and then were lured to the same neighborhood to complete the purported sales.
On October 29, 2015, a husband who wanted to buy an iPhone 6 for his wife found one for sale on Craigslist. He sent a text message to the cell phone contact number listed in the Craigslist advertisement, and the seller responded. After the parties agreed to a sales price for the iPhone, the seller told the husband to meet him at 3638 Thurleston Court, an address in a residential neighborhood in Cobb County. However, when the husband drove to the address that afternoon, the seller was not there, and the house at that location was empty. The husband called the seller using the same contact number, and the seller told the husband to wait for him to arrive.
A few minutes after the phone conversation, a man carrying a bag approached the husband's car and got into the back seat without asking first. The man showed the husband an iPhone and asked if he brought the cash for the purchase. The husband answered in the affirmative and started to get the money out of his wallet, whereupon the man pulled out a gun, unlocked the safety, pointed the gun at the husband, and demanded that he put the cash and his own cell phone into the bag. After taking approximately $500 in cash and the cell phone from the husband, the man exited the car. He fled on foot, heading north on Thurleston Court and then right on Asquith Avenue. Once the man ran off, the husband drove away and waved down another driver, who allowed him to borrow her cell phone and call 911.
A similar incident occurred less than a month later, on November 22, 2015, and involved a couple who wanted to purchase a MacBook laptop computer. After the boyfriend found a MacBook for sale on Craigslist, he communicated with the seller by e-mail and text message based on the contact information in the advertisement. The cell phone number listed for the seller in the MacBook advertisement was the same number listed in the iPhone advertisement associated with the October 29 robbery. After communicating with the seller, the boyfriend discussed the potential purchase with his girlfriend, who agreed to provide the cash to buy the MacBook.
Once the parties agreed on a sales price for the MacBook, the seller spoke with the boyfriend on the phone and instructed him to meet the seller in the parking lot of a Walgreens in Cobb County that afternoon. The girlfriend brought the cash and drove her boyfriend to the parking lot, but the seller was not there. The boyfriend informed the seller that they were at the Walgreens. After fifteen minutes passed and the seller had not arrived, the boyfriend contacted the seller, who said that he was waiting to get a ride to the Walgreens. Thirty more minutes passed, but the seller did not arrive. The boyfriend again called the seller, who advised the couple to meet him at 3626 Thurleston Court, which was a mile or two from the Walgreens. The couple drove to that address, but the seller was not there, and the house was empty.
As they were about to drive away from the neighborhood, a man walked toward the couple's car with an Apple store bag that contained a box inside of it and waved for them to stop. The boyfriend got out of the car and approached the man, who wanted to go to a different location to complete the sale. While they were talking, the man got into the back seat of the couple's car even though the boyfriend told him not to do so. When the man refused to get out of the back seat, the boyfriend got into the front passenger seat, and the man instructed the girlfriend, who was still in the driver's seat, to drive to a house located on the corner of Asquith Avenue and another street in the same neighborhood. Once they arrived at that location, the man pulled out a gun, pointed it at the couple, and demanded the cash and their cell phones. In response to the man's demand, the boyfriend opened the glove compartment, retrieved $1,100 in cash, and gave it to the man. The girlfriend also gave the man her and her boyfriend's cell phones. After taking the cash and cell phones, the man exited the car and ran behind a house located at 2180 Asquith Avenue. Once the man fled, the couple drove from the scene and flagged down a police officer at a nearby traffic stop.
The Investigation. The three robbery victims provided descriptions of the robber, but the police were unable to apprehend a suspect on the dates of the robberies. The husband in the October 29 robbery and the boyfriend in the November 22 robbery, both of whom spoke on the phone with the seller, thought that the seller's voice sounded different from the robber's voice.
The husband in the October 29 robbery also provided the police with a copy of the Craigslist advertisement for the iPhone and the seller's cell phone number that he had called. The lead detective assigned to the case had a crime analyst run the seller's phone number through a computer database. Based on the report from the crime analyst, the detective was able to connect the phone number to 2176 Asquith Avenue, which was Intemann's home address. The address was near where the robberies occurred and where the robber was seen fleeing after the robberies.
In addition to researching the phone number of the iPhone seller, the detective subpoenaed Craigslist for information about the account holder who placed the iPhone advertisement, and Craigslist identified Christopher.Intemann@yahoo.com as the e-mail address associated with the advertisement. Craigslist also provided the IP address for the iPhone advertisement, and, based on a subpoena issued to AT&T, the detective learned that the IP address was registered to Intemann's home address. Another detective sent a second subpoena to Craigslist, which identified several more advertisements posted from the same user account, including the advertisement for the MacBook associated with November 22 robbery.
As part of the investigation, the detectives showed photographic lineups separately to each of the robbery victims that included a photograph of Intemann. The husband in the October 29 robbery and boyfriend in the November 22 robbery were unable to identify anyone in the lineup. When a detective showed the lineup to the girlfriend, she selected two photographs as the robber in the November 22 robbery. According to the girlfriend, the two men that she selected were so similar in appearance that she thought they were the same person. One of the men that the girlfriend selected was Intemann.2
After Intemann was identified as a suspect, the lead detective obtained a search warrant for Intemann's house. During the search, the police found several items in Intemann's bedroom, including a MacBook, a MacBook box, a Hi-Point nine millimeter handgun, ammunition, and $405 in cash.
Intemann's Police Interviews. After the search warrant was executed, Intemann was transported to the Cobb County Police Department, where he agreed to be interviewed by the lead detective after being advised of his Miranda3 rights.
At the beginning of the interview, Intemann explained that he lived at the Asquith Avenue address with his mother and several other family members, but his descriptions of the other males in the household did not meet the description of the robber given by the victims. However, the detective observed that Intemann had short dreadlocks, and the boyfriend in the November 22 robbery described the robber as having that particular hairstyle.
As the interview continued, Intemann admitted that the handgun found in his bedroom belonged to him and that he had placed the Craigslist advertisements for the iPhone and MacBook. He also admitted that the phone number listed in the Craigslist advertisements and used for communication with the victims was his cell phone number.
Intemann initially maintained that he had no knowledge of the robberies and that he had sold his phone to some other men before the robberies had taken place. But Intemann later claimed that another individual named Jacoby was at Intemann's home on the dates that the robberies occurred, had learned of Intemann's efforts to sell the iPhone and MacBook to the victims, and had posed as the seller and robbed them.4 As to the November 22 robbery, Intemann admitted...
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Holley v. State
...there is evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what its proponent claims." Intemann v. State , 358 Ga. App. 488, 494 (1), 855 S.E.2d 666 (2021) (citation and punctuation omitted). See OCGA § 24-9-901 (a), (b). Authentication may be achieved through "[t]esti......
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Holley v. State
...question of authenticity to be decided by the jury." Nicholson v. State, 307 Ga. 466, 475 (5) (837 S.E.2d 362) (2019); accord Intemann, 358 Ga.App. at 495 (1). This reviews a trial court's decision to admit or exclude evidence for a clear abuse of discretion. Intemann, 358 Ga.App. at 495 (1......