Laye v. State
| Decision Date | 28 November 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. A11A1456.,A11A1456. |
| Parties | LAYE v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
James Denny Lamb, Waycross, for appellant.
Peter J. Skandalakis, Dist. Atty., Anne Cobb Allen, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Randall Laye appeals his conviction for armed robbery arising out of an incident in Carrollton that led the State to charge nine individuals with murder, armed robbery, aggravated assault, cruelty to children, and other crimes. Laye was tried with co-defendant Chade Ackey, and, although both were charged with 17 crimes, Laye was convicted only of armed robbery (and sentenced to life), and Ackey was acquitted on all counts. The State's primary evidence inculpating Laye came from Christopher Coleman, the only person who pled guilty and agreed to testify against Laye and Ackey.
On appeal, Laye enumerates several errors concerning evidence of corroboration: that the corroborative evidence was insufficient; that the court erred by failing to give a limiting instruction regarding a custodial statement by co-defendant Ackey that implicated Laye; that, for the same reasons, the court erred by denying Laye's motion to sever his trial from Ackey's; and that trial counsel was ineffective by failing to request a limiting instruction regarding Ackey's statement. One other alleged error will be addressed, as well.
Because the main issue concerns corroboration of Coleman's testimony, we will begin there. Coleman pled guilty to murder, armed robbery, multiple counts of aggravated assault, multiple counts of cruelty to children, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; he is serving life plus ten years. He testified to the following: He was nineteen years old in July 2006, and, although he had been in Carrollton for only about five weeks, he had made friends with several young men there, including LaBryan Lytle, Varion “Snoopy” Shell, Arlandra Deonte “Red” Holland, and Aerius “P” Potts. On the night of July 19, Coleman arranged to borrow a white Neon car from a friend; he then rounded up the above group of young men. They had a plan to go to LaGrange and possibly rob someone there, but when the events unfolded in Carrollton, they decided to use the story that they went to LaGrange as an alibi.
As Coleman was driving at about 10:00 p.m., Potts made a telephone call, then he told Coleman to drive to the Elizabeth Village mobile home park in Carrollton. When they arrived, Potts said that they were looking for an older model, dark blue or black car, which they found almost immediately. All those in the white car, except Coleman, got out and shook hands with those sitting in the blue car. Coleman then got out, and someone from the white car said to Coleman, “Let me introduce you to my home boy.” Coleman was introduced to Chade Ackey, Cody Buchanan, Marcus Oliphant, and “Boots,” who he identified at trial as Randall Laye. He had never met Laye before that night.
Those from the white car got back in with Coleman at the wheel, and both cars drove to a different spot and reparked, perhaps 30 yards apart, facing out of Elizabeth Village. Everyone in the white car got out, and, although Coleman could not see well, he thought he saw three people get out of the blue car—Oliphant, Buchanan, and Laye. At this point, Coleman had a .38 caliber gun, and he helped Potts reload his nine millimeter gun, for which Laye was present. Coleman testified that Holland had a .32 caliber gun and Lytle had a .38 caliber gun. The heavily armed group then began to move through the neighborhood. At this point, Coleman had not seen Laye with a gun.
Coleman testified that he, Lytle, Shell, Holland, and Potts (the group from the white car) walked down the hill toward a mobile home with two SUVs parked out front. Oliphant and Buchanan did not follow; they remained “on top of the hill,” but that was only a home or so away. Laye appeared wearing a mask, and he knocked on the mobile home door, but nobody answered. Pedro Espinoza, who was unknown to the group, then came out of the next home and sat on the trunk of his car smoking a cigarette. Coleman called everyone's attention, and he approached and asked Espinoza for a cigarette. Espinoza said he did not have any.
Coleman then saw Laye put a small gun, possibly a .22 or .25 caliber, to Espinoza's head and twice say, “Give up the money.” Potts approached and began patting Espinoza down; Espinoza's cell phone fell out of his pocket; Potts picked it up; and Espinoza protested that he did not have any money. Potts then put his gun to Espinoza's mouth, and Holland kneed him in the groin, knocking him to the ground. Espinoza's brother appeared at the door of the home and asked what was going on; then his brother's wife asked what the group wanted. But once the woman closed the door, Potts started shooting, and Coleman and Laye followed suit; according to Coleman, however, Laye only shot in the air. They all then ran back to the cars. At the cars, someone, maybe Laye, asked for more bullets, and Lytle gave him some .22 or .25 caliber bullets.
At Potts's direction, Coleman then drove to a Kroger parking lot; there, another car approached, from which Ackey and Oliphant exited and got in the white car with Coleman and the others. Ackey asked repeatedly, “why did they shoot ... why did the shooting start.” The group then drove around and threw the .32 and the nine-millimeter out the window. The group eventually returned the car to the friend. Coleman did not testify about what happened to Laye or the blue car after the two cars left Elizabeth Village.
Evidence from other sources showed that when the shots were fired, Espinoza was wounded, his sister-in-law Paola Cabanas was hit inside the mobile home with a .38 caliber bullet from Coleman's gun and killed, and one of three children in the home was shot through the legs as she sat on the couch watching television with her brother and sister. Espinoza's cell phone was found on the side of a road outside of Elizabeth Village.
1. In felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice, the testimony of a single witness is not sufficient; corroboration is necessary. See OCGA § 24–4–8. The corroborating evidence itself must connect the defendant with the crime or lead to an inference that he is guilty:
To sustain a conviction in a felony case upon the testimony of an accomplice, there must be corroborating facts or circumstances, which, in themselves and independently of the testimony of the accomplice, directly connect the defendant with the crime, or lead to the inference that he is guilty. The necessary corroborating evidence may be circumstantial and it may be slight.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Matthews v. State, 284 Ga. 819–820(1), 672 S.E.2d 633 (2009). The sufficiency of the corroborating evidence is a question for the trier of fact. Id.
Here, we need only find that the jury had sufficient corroborating evidence that Laye participated in an armed robbery, the only crime of which he was convicted; the indictment alleged that the defendants intended to and took Espinoza's cell phone by use of a handgun. Moreover, Laye may be convicted as a party to the crime if he was “concerned in the commission of [the] crime.” OCGA § 16–2–20(a). Subsection (b)(3) provides that a person is concerned in the commission of the crime if he or she “[i]ntentionally aids or abets in the commission of the crime.” OCGA § 16–2–20(b)(3). The jury was instructed on parties to a crime.
With regard to evidence corroborating Coleman's testimony, the State introduced two statements that Laye made to investigating officers on the two days following the shooting. The trial court found that the statements were freely and voluntarily given following proper Miranda procedures. The two statements corroborate the general events in Coleman's account, including placing Laye as the driver of the blue car, showing that Laye had heard Potts say that he was going to shoot somebody that night, and showing that Laye moved close enough to see the shooting; but Laye also stated that he was unarmed and that he did not go “down the hill” to the trailer and get involved with Espinoza or the shooting.
More specifically, Officer Steve Daniel testified that he spoke to Laye on July 20 and 21, 2006 and that both interviews were recorded. Laye's mother was present at the end of the first session and for the entirety of the second. The recordings of the two interviews were played to the jury.
Laye's first interview was internally inconsistent with regard to his precise actions. He testified that he was 17 years old at the time; that he was driving the blue car; that he, Buchanan, and Oliphant were riding around when they got a call from Potts; that they drove to Elizabeth Village and met Potts, Holland, Shell, and Lytle, all of whom he knew, as well as a fifth person whom he did not know [Coleman], riding in a white Neon; that Laye and those in the blue car got out of the car; that he never got out of the blue car; that the two groups talked for about five minutes; that Potts said, “Before the night over, I'm going to shoot me somebody, boy.”; that everybody in Potts's car had a gun; that Potts and his group “just started shooting”; that he heard gunshots before he got out of the car; that Potts's group “shot up the house”; and that when he heard the shots, he drove off. At one point, Laye's mother came in to the interview, and the officer left. Laye told his mother that he had told the police everything. Laye said to his mother, “I swear to God, me and Cody [Buchanan] didn't get out of the car.”
In the second interview, this time with his mother present the entire time, Laye gave the following additional information: that he “wasn't really out of the car”; that he was not at the trailer when the others shot; and that he was “up the street” at that moment. At this point, Laye said, “I want a...
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