Jackson v. State

• Decision Date: 03 July 2012
• Docket Number: No. A12A0654.,A12A0654.
• Parties: JACKSON v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

316 Ga.App. 588

730 S.E.2d 69

12 FCDR 2253

JACKSON

v.The STATE.

No. A12A0654.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

July 3, 2012.

Mark J. Nathan, Savannah, for Anthony Jackson.

Larry Chisolm, Arvo Henifin, for The State.

BARNES, Presiding Judge.

A jury found Anthony Jackson guilty of two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated battery, and burglary.¹ The trial court denied his motion for new trial. On appeal, Jackson raises multiple enumerations of error. He contends that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of the charged offenses, that the burglary count of the indictment was fatally defective, and that the trial court erred by not permitting him to impeach one of the victims with a first offender guilty plea. Jackson further contends that the trial court committed several errors in its charge to the jury and that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

1. Jackson challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of the charged offenses. In reviewing whether the evidence was sufficient,

we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption of innocence. We neither weigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of witnesses, but determine only whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Sidner v. State, 304 Ga.App. 373, 374, 696 S.E.2d 398 (2010).

Viewed in this manner, the evidence showed that Jackson and the female victim, his former girlfriend, had been involved in an “off and on” intimate relationship lasting several years, had a daughter together, and lived with one another for a period of time at the victim's apartment in Chatham County. Their relationship was tumultuous and marked by episodes of physical violence. In October 2005, the girlfriend broke up with Jackson for the last time and told him to stay out of her apartment, and he moved back into his mother's house. Because she had ended her relationship with Jackson, the girlfriendhad the locks changed on her apartment doors.

In the early morning hours of January 15, 2006, Jackson's former girlfriend and her new boyfriend were spending the night at her apartment. The girlfriend and her boyfriend had been romantically involved previously, and Jackson and the boyfriend knew of one another.²

At the time of the attack at issue in this case, the girlfriend and her boyfriend were together in bed in the upstairs bedroom. The girlfriend was watching television, and her boyfriend was asleep beside her. Jackson suddenly entered the bedroom with a steak knife in his hand that had been retrieved from the downstairs kitchen. He approached the bed “real fast” with the knife. The boyfriend awoke when he heard his girlfriend say in a frightened voice to Jackson, “How the f* *k you get in my house?” The girlfriend tried to grab the knife from Jackson, but he cut her hand. When the boyfriend sat up in bed, Jackson stabbed him in the spine. As Jackson tried to pull the knife out, the blade broke off in the boyfriend's back. Jackson then reached for a baseball bat that the girlfriend kept by her bed for personal protection, and the boyfriend began “tussling” with him over it. During the struggle over the bat, the boyfriend fell from the bed onto the floor, and Jackson fled from the bedroom. Unable to get up from the floor, the boyfriend realized that he could not feel his legs.

After Jackson fled from the bedroom, his former girlfriend headed downstairs to call the police on the land-line in the kitchen. Upon retrieving another steak knife from the kitchen, Jackson attacked her on the stairway. While calling her a “bitch” and a “whore,” Jackson cut his former girlfriend with the knife on the back of her head, on the side of her face, and on her shoulder and back. Jackson slashed her across the nose with the knife and stabbed her in the stomach. Jackson eventually stopped striking his former girlfriend with the knife and fled from the apartment.

The girlfriend ran outside and had a neighbor call 911. After the police and emergency medical technicians arrived at the scene, she and her boyfriend were taken to the hospital. Her boyfriend was hospitalized for over a month after the attack. He was paralyzed as a result of his spinal cord injury. The girlfriend received staples and stitches for her cuts and stab wounds, and she continues to bear scars on her body from the knife attack. After the attack, Jackson's former girlfriend and her boyfriend got married and have remained married, although his paralysis has made their marriage difficult over the years.

Based upon his entering and remaining in the apartment and his stabbing of his former girlfriend and her new boyfriend, Jackson was charged and tried before a jury on two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of aggravated battery, and burglary.³ The two victims of the knife attack testified to the events as set out above, and the jury also heard from the patrol officer who responded to the scene of the attack, as well as the forensic investigator and detective who were involved in the case. Jackson chose not to testify, although he presented witness testimony through which he attempted to establish that he was still living with his girlfriend at the time of the attack. After hearing all of the testimony, the jury found Jackson guilty of the charged offenses, and the trial court merged the aggravated assault convictions into the aggravated battery convictions for sentencing purposes. Jackson filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied, leading to this appeal.

When viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Jackson guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the two counts of aggravated battery and burglary for which he was convicted.⁴ See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). The testimony of the victims, standing alone, was sufficient to sustain the convictions. See OCGA § 24–4–8 (“The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact.”); Obeginski v. State, 313 Ga.App. 567, 569(1) & n. 5, 722 S.E.2d 162 (2012). And it was the role of the jury, not this Court, “to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Farris v. State, 290 Ga. 323, 324(1), 720 S.E.2d 604 (2012).

Jackson, however, argues that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of aggravated battery for stabbing his former girlfriend because her wounds were “superficial” and no “medical evidence was presented by trained physicians to explain the injury.” Consequently, Jackson contends, there was insufficient evidence that the girlfriend suffered serious disfigurement, one of the elements of aggravated battery as charged in this case. See OCGA § 16–5–24(a) (“A person commits the offense of aggravated battery when he or she maliciously causes bodily harm to another ... by seriously disfiguring his or her body or a member thereof.”).

We are unpersuaded because the evidence showed that Jackson's former girlfriend bore scars as a result of her stab wounds. Whether the scars rose to the level of serious disfigurement was a factual issue for the jury to resolve. See Grace v. State, 210 Ga.App. 718, 719(2), 437 S.E.2d 485 (1993); Barfield v. State, 170 Ga.App. 796, 797(2), 318 S.E.2d 219 (1984). Nor was the State required to present expert testimony from a physician to prove serious disfigurement. See Holloway v. State, 269 Ga.App. 500, 503(2), 604 S.E.2d 844 (2004). The jury, which heard from the girlfriend and saw her scars, was authorized to find from the evidence that the girlfriend was seriously disfigured as a result of the knife attack. See id. Jackson's argument, therefore, is without merit.

2. Jackson maintains that the burglary count of the indictment was defective because the offense was misnamed as “aggravated battery.” Specifically, Count 5 of the indictment stated:

COUNT [FIVE]: BUGLARY [sic]

(OCGA § 16–7–1)

And the jurors aforesaid, in the name and behalf of the citizens of Georgia, further charge and accuse ANTHONY JACKSON with having committed the offense of AGGRAVATED BATTERY [sic], for that the said ANTHONY JACKSON, in the County of Chatham and State of Georgia, did knowingly, intentionally, unlawfully and without authority, on or about January 15, 2006, enter or remain within the dwelling house of another, to wit: [his former girlfriend's apartment], with the intent to commit a felony, to wit: aggravated assault, therein, contrary to the laws of the State of Georgia, the good order, peace and dignity thereof.

According to Jackson, the mislabeling of the offense as “aggravated battery” in the body of the indictment required the trial court to grant his motion to quash Count 5.

We disagree. As an initial matter, we note that “[a]n accused may challenge the sufficiency of an indictment by filing a general or special demurrer. A general demurrer challenges the sufficiency of the substance of the indictment, whereas a special demurrer challenges the sufficiency of the form of the indictment.” (Citation, punctuation, and emphasis omitted.) State v. Corhen, 306 Ga.App. 495, 496–497, 700 S.E.2d 912 (2010). Under OCGA § 17–7–110, a special demurrer must be filed within ten days after the arraignment, unless the trial court extends the time for filing. See Palmer v. State, 282 Ga. 466, 468, 651 S.E.2d 86 (2007). But “[a] general demurrer, in which a defendant contends that the charging instrument fails altogether to charge him with a crime, may be raised at any time” before the trial court. See Kain v. State, 287 Ga.App. 45, 48(2), ...