Lewis v. State
| Decision Date | 26 September 1990 |
| Docket Number | No. S90A0682,S90A0682 |
| Citation | 396 S.E.2d 212,260 Ga. 404 |
| Parties | LEWIS v. The STATE |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Raymond A. Majors, Jr., Hinesville, for Florine Lewis.
Dupont K. Cheney, Dist. Atty., Hinesville, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., C.A. Benjamin Woolf, Atty. State Law Dept., Atlanta, J. Thomas Durden, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Hinesville, for the State.
Florine Lewis was convicted by a jury of the felony murder of her boyfriend Roosevelt Ashley, Jr., and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1 She appeals, raising as her sole enumeration of error the sufficiency of the evidence.
The victim came to the mobile home where he and the defendant lived with her children, told the defendant he had decided to move out, and began to collect his belongings. The defendant threatened "to hurt him" if he attempted to leave, and took a .22 caliber rifle from a closet "to try to keep him from leaving." The gun discharged when the victim grabbed it while the defendant had her hand on the trigger. The defendant's defense at trial was accident.
Having reviewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's determination, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty of felony murder, the underlying felony being the aggravated assault of the victim, beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Crawford v. State, 245 Ga. 89, 90, 263 S.E.2d 131 (1980). See generally Baker v. State, 236 Ga. 754, 225 S.E.2d 269 (1976). 2
Judgment affirmed.
All the Justices concur, except BELL and BENHAM, JJ., who concur in the judgment only, and WELTNER, J., not participating.
1 The crime was committed on July 15, 1988, and Lewis was indicted for felony murder during the August 1988 term of the Long County Grand Jury. She was tried, convicted, and sentenced on May 2, 1989. Her motion for new trial, filed May 17, 1989, was denied on January 4, 1990. The defendant's notice of appeal was filed January 24, 1990, and the trial transcript, certified by the court reporter on June 1, 1989, was filed in this court on February 26, 1990. The case was docketed in this court on February 27, 1990, and submitted for decision on April 17, 1990.
2 The "merger doctrine," which prohibits a felony murder instruction where the felony is an integral part of the homicide, would preclude this felony murder conviction based upon an aggravated assault directed against the person who is killed. See Baker v. State, 236 Ga. 754, 757, 225 S.E.2d 269 (1976). In Baker, this court rejected the merger doctrine because, given this state's very narrow statutory definitions of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, to do otherwise would bar convictions for certain killings which warrant punishment. Nevertheless, there are compelling arguments for requiring that the felony supporting a felony murder instruction be committed with a purpose independent of the murder....
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...of counsel due to the failure to object to the admission of the game warden's testimony.4 OCGA § 16-11-108(a).5 Lewis v. State, 260 Ga. 404, 405 n. 2, 396 S.E.2d 212 (1990).6 Id.; see Baker v. The State, 236 Ga. 754, 755, 225 S.E.2d 269 (1976).7 236 Ga. 754, 225 S.E.2d 269 (1976).8 236 Ga. ......
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