Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 20 September 2022
• Docket Number: S22A0548
• Citation: 314 Ga. 605,878 S.E.2d 505
• Parties: JONES v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

314 Ga. 605

878 S.E.2d 505

JONES

v.The STATE.

S22A0548

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: September 20, 2022

Barbara Mattes, Barbara Mattes, Attorney At, Law, P.O. Box 5952, Athens, Georgia 30604, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Eric Christopher Peters, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Joshua Bradley Smith, A.D.A., Jared Tolton Williams, District Attorney, Augusta Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office, 735 James Brown Boulevard, Suite 2400, Augusta, Georgia 30901, for Appellee.

LaGrua, Justice.

Appellant Carl Lamont Jones was convicted of felony murder and other crimes in connection with the April 7, 2015 shooting death of John Lee Jones. On appeal, Appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain evidence collected from his back yard; that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to properly question and remove a juror who disclosed mid-trial that she went to school with one of the witnesses; that the trial court erred by refusing to permit Appellant to cross-examine a witness about her pending criminal charge; and that Appellant is entitled to a new trial due to the cumulative effect of multiple errors at trial under State v. Lane , 308 Ga. 10, 838 S.E.2d 808 (2020).¹ For the reasons that follow, we affirm Appellant's convictions.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at Appellant's trial showed that on the night of April 7, 2015, Appellant and his girlfriend, Jamila Rena Allen, drove to the Dogwood Terrace apartment complex in Augusta in Allen's white Chevrolet Suburban for Appellant to look for his missing cell phone. When they arrived, Appellant parked the car in front of the apartment complex and got out of the vehicle, but Allen stayed in the front passenger seat and played games on her phone.

Shiesha Thurman and Renee Young were standing outside the apartment complex that night, and they observed Appellant and Allen drive up in a "white long car." Thurman testified that Appellant walked over in front of the apartments and started "flipping out about a cell phone," asking "where the F his stuff was and somebody better come up with his stuff." Thurman and Young then watched as Appellant got a shotgun from inside the Suburban and started "shooting crazy." Young dropped to the ground. Thurman overheard the victim John Lee Jones ("John Lee"), who was standing nearby, tell Appellant that "nobody didn't have his phone," but Appellant still kept shooting "every way." John Lee was struck during the shooting. According to Thurman, "the buckshots had caught him, and it was too late before he could duck to miss the buckshots." Several vehicles parked along the roadway were also struck, including Young's 2010 Mazda 5.

After the shooting, Appellant jumped back into the Suburban with Allen and told her to drive off because "they were shooting."² Allen testified that she panicked and drove directly to the house she shared with Appellant and her children located at 3419 Chadbourne Street. Appellant left the residence soon afterward in Allen's Suburban, but Allen did not know where he went.³

Shortly before midnight, officers with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office arrived at the Dogwood Terrace apartment complex and learned that John Lee had been transported by a private vehicle to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries.⁴ Officers located three shotgun shells in the fire lane in front of the apartment complex, and they also observed several parked cars that had been struck by buckshot. The firearms examiner testified that the three shotgun shells were fired from the same firearm, a 12-gauge shotgun. He also testified that the buckshot pellets he obtained from the medical examiner were consistent with lead buckshot from a shotgun.

That night, Investigator Shea Yates spoke to Thurman and Young separately in an apartment located close to the scene, and the women gave separate accounts of what occurred and provided descriptions of the shooter. Based on their descriptions, Investigator Yates went back to the station and put together a photo lineup of six men. He then returned to Dogwood Terrace and showed the lineup to Thurman and Young individually. Both women selected Appellant's picture from the lineup as the man who shot John Lee earlier that night. The women also identified Appellant as the shooter at trial.

Based on Thurman's and Young's identifications, Investigator Yates obtained an arrest warrant for Appellant on April 8 at 3:35 a.m. After conducting a database search for Appellant's current residential address and obtaining the motor vehicle registration for Allen's Suburban, Investigator Yates learned that Appellant resided with Allen at 3419 Chadbourne Street. At 6:23 a.m., Investigator Yates and other officers went to 3419 Chadbourne Street to look for Appellant. According to Investigator Yates, the officers first attempted to get an answer at the front door, but no one responded. The officers then went around to the back of the house through a low, gated chain link fence. The officers did not get an answer when they knocked on the back door of the house.

Investigator Yates testified that as the officers went around to the back door of the residence, they noticed a shotgun shell lying in the grass in the back yard. The officers photographed the shotgun shell and then sealed it into evidence packaging to be turned over to the GBI for processing.⁵ When the firearms examiner later compared the shotgun shell from the back yard of 3419 Chadbourne Street to the shells found at the scene of the shooting, he determined that they were fired from the same 12-gauge shotgun.

Around 8:00 p.m. on April 8, Allen spoke by telephone to officers with the Richmond County Sheriff's Office, and she gave them permission to search 3419 Chadbourne Street that evening. At the time, Allen did not tell the officers that she was with Appellant the previous night at the Dogwood Terrace apartment complex.⁶ The officers did not locate Appellant during their subsequent search of the residence.

Over the next few months, officers continued searching for Appellant, including obtaining search warrants for his cell phone records, following leads from confidential informants, and using the assistance of neighboring sheriff's offices. After receiving a tip as to Appellant's whereabouts, officers located Appellant on July 2, 2015, at an abandoned house in the Richmond Hill area, where he was arrested and taken into custody.

2. On appeal, Appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the shotgun shell the officers collected from the back yard of 3419 Chadbourne Street because, among other reasons, the officers did not have a search warrant authorizing them to seize the shotgun shell or any other object from the enclosed back yard of the residence, and the requirements of the plain-view exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution have not been met.

On the first morning of trial, June 26, 2018, the trial court held a hearing on Appellant's motion to suppress, and the State presented the testimony of Investigator Yates. Following the hearing, the trial court orally denied Appellant's motion in open court, concluding that—based on the testimony and arguments presented—the State met its burden of proof. However, the record does not include a written order reflecting the trial court's express findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Following Appellant's convictions, Appellant filed a motion for new trial, asserting, among other contentions, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. The judge who heard Appellant's motion for new trial concluded that the trial court did not err in allowing the shotgun shell into evidence because the arrest warrant authorized the officers to enter the back yard of Appellant's residence and "to collect the evidence they discovered in plain view while attempting to execute this arrest warrant."

"[T]he manner in which we review a ruling on a motion to suppress" is as follows:

First, when a motion to suppress is heard by the trial judge, that judge sits as the trier of facts. The trial judge hears the evidence, and his findings based upon conflicting evidence are analogous to the verdict of a jury and should not be disturbed by a reviewing court if there is any evidence to support it. Second, the trial court's decision with regard to questions of fact and credibility must be accepted unless clearly erroneous. Third, the reviewing court must construe the evidence most favorably to the upholding of the trial court's findings and judgment.

Douglas v. State , 303 Ga. 178, 181 (2), 811 S.E.2d 337 (2018) (citation and punctuation omitted). See also Hughes v. State , 296 Ga. 744, 746 (1), 770 S.E.2d 636 (2015) ("When the facts material to a motion to suppress are disputed, it generally is for the trial judge to resolve those disputes and determine the material facts."). However, "[t]he trial court ... is not required to make express findings of fact after a hearing on a motion to suppress," and where the trial court has not done so, "we nevertheless construe the evidence most favorably to uphold the trial court's judgment." State v. Brogan , 340 Ga. App. 232, 234, 797 S.E.2d 149 (2017). In so construing the evidence, this Court can consider the pretrial testimony adduced at the suppression hearing, as well as the trial transcript. See White v. State , 263 Ga. 94, 98 (5), 428 S.E.2d 789 (1993). See also Sanders v. State , 235 Ga. 425, 432 (II), 219 S.E.2d 768 (1975) (holding that, in considering a defendant's motion to suppress, consideration will be given to the testimony presented at the motions hearing as supplemented by the trial transcript)...