Lanham v. State
Decision Date | 01 October 2012 |
Docket Number | No. S12A1348.,S12A1348. |
Citation | 291 Ga. 625,732 S.E.2d 72 |
Parties | LANHAM v. The STATE. |
Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Craig T. Pearson, Hinesville, for appellant.
Thomas Durden, Dist. Atty., Gregory M. McConnell, Ronald Joseph Poirier, Asst. Dist. Attys., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Asst. Atty. Gen., Brittany Nicole Jones, Asst. Atty. Gen., Dawn Warren, Richmond Hill, for appellee.
A jury convicted Stacey O. Lanham of the stabbing death of Gerald Mutcherson in connection with a drug deal.1 At trial, Lanham admitted killing Mutcherson, but claimed it was in self defense. On appeal, Lanham contends that the State failed to establish venue and the trial court failed to instruct the jury on the burden of proof for venue. Finding no error, we affirm.
1. Testifying in his own defense at trial, Lanham said he picked up Mutcherson at “the 400 block,” where he lived around 9:00 p.m. on October 5, 2005, and they began driving around. While Mutcherson talked on his cell phone, Lanham asked for $40 of crack cocaine. Mutcherson handed some cocaine to Lanham, who smoked a little of it as he drove. After Mutcherson got off the telephone, he asked for his money. Lanham said he did not have any money and instead had stereo speakers to trade. Mutcherson said he wanted his money and that he was going to kill Lanham if he did not get it. Mutcherson began to reach in his pocket, and Lanham testified that he thought Mutcherson was reaching for a gun. Lanham tried to stop Mutcherson, who flung away Lanham's hand. As Mutcherson continued to reach in his pocket, Lanham grabbed a knife and stabbed Mutcherson. When Mutcherson stiffened up, Lanham panicked; he turned onto a dirt road and dragged Mutcherson's body from the truck and into the woods. Returning home, Lanham asked his girlfriend to help clean the blood from the truck. She testified that he was freaking out, saying “I killed him.” The following day Lanham washed the truck at a car wash, threw away Mutcherson's cell phone in a dumpster at the car wash, and threw a bag of bloodied clothing, towels, and rags out of the truck while traveling to his mother's house. After Mutcherson's body was discovered that morning, police began calling people whose names and phone numbers were listed on a piece of paper found in Mutcherson's pocket. Lanham was the only person contacted who did not cooperate; later that evening he surrendered himself to police. The medical examiner testified that Mutcherson died from a stab wound to his chest. After reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's determination of guilt, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found Lanham guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes charged. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Lanham contends that the State failed to establish venue by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We have held that venue is a jurisdictional fact and an essential element that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt for every crime. Jones v. State, 272 Ga. 900(2), 537 S.E.2d 80 (2000). The State may use both direct and circumstantial evidence to prove venue. Id. In general, defendants should be tried in the county where the crime occurred. OCGA § 17–2–2(a). OCGA § 17–2–2(c) provides that a criminal homicide is committed in the county in which the cause of death was inflicted, and if it “cannot be readily determined in what county the cause of death was inflicted, it shall be considered that the cause of death was inflicted in the county in which the dead body was discovered.”
In this case, there was sufficient evidence that the cause of death was inflicted in Bryan County. Based on aerial photographs obtained from the tax assessor's office in Bryan County, the chief investigator for the Bryan County Sheriff's Department identified the location of the residences of Lanham, his parents, and Mutcherson and the place where Mutcherson's body was found. In his testimony, Lanham said that he picked up Mutcherson near his residence and drove on Black Creek, Indian Trail, and Porterfield Roads, which were identified for the jury on the enlarged photographs. GBI investigators testified that the Bryan County Sheriff's Department requested their involvement in the investigation, asking one “to respond to the area off of Porterfield Road in Bryan County” where a body had been found, and a second “to respond to Porterfield Road in Pembroke, Bryan County, Georgia.” Viewing the evidence as a whole, we conclude that the State met its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that venue was properly in Bryan County. See Armstrong v. State, 286 Ga. 420(2), 688 S.E.2d 629 (2010) ( ); Robinson v. State, 275 Ga. 143(2), 561 S.E.2d 823 (2002) (...
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