Lewis v. State

• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Sears
• Citation: Lewis v. State, 620 S.E.2d 778, 279 Ga. 756 (Ga. 2005)
• Decision Date: 19 September 2005
• Docket Number: No. S05P0906.,S05P0906.
• Parties: LEWIS v. The STATE.

279 Ga. 756

Page 778

620 S.E.2d 778

LEWIS v. The STATE.

No. S05P0906.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

September 19, 2005.

Reconsideration Denied October 24, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Michael Mears, Multi-County Public Defenders Office, Lindsay Nicole Bennett, Georgia Capital Defender, Kenneth W. Krontz, Douglasville, for Appellant.

James David McDade, Dist. Atty., Paul Joseph Miovas, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Hon. Thurbert E. Baker, Atty. Gen., Susan V. Boleyn, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Sabrina Dawn Graham, Asst. Atty. Gen., Christopher Robert Johnson, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Appellee.

Thomas Howard Dunn, Georgia Resource Center, Atlanta, Holly Lynn Geerdes, Georgia Capital Defender, Richard A. Malone, Prosecuting Atty's Office, other party representation.

SEARS, Chief Justice.

Gerald Patrick Lewis murdered Peggy Grimes in Douglas County in 1993. In 2001, Lewis pled guilty to malice murder, felony murder feticide, aggravated battery, and kidnaping with bodily injury. After a 2003 sentencing trial, the jury recommended a death sentence for the malice murder conviction after it found three statutory aggravating circumstances: the murder of Peggy Grimes was committed by the defendant while he was engaged in the commission of an aggravated battery; the murder of Peggy Grimes was committed by the defendant while he was engaged in the commission of a kidnaping with bodily injury; and the murder of Peggy Grimes by the defendant was outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman in that it involved torture, depravity of mind, and an aggravated battery to the victim.¹ We affirm the death sentence.²

1. In the summer of 1993, the mother of 22-year-old Peggy Grimes reported her missing in Fulton County. Ms. Grimes was eight or nine months pregnant at the time. In September 1993, police in Douglas County discovered the skeletal remains of a woman believed to be in her mid-20's; they could not identify her so the remains were retained by the medical examiner. Lewis lived in Atlanta in 1993. In December 1993, he was incarcerated for theft by receiving, possession of car theft tools, possession of a knife during the commission of a crime, interference with government property, and driving under the influence. Upon his release in November 1997, he moved to Alabama.

On April 12, 1998, the police in Mobile, Alabama, responded to a murder in a seedy motel. The victim, Kathleen Bracken, had been strangled and stabbed. Witnesses provided descriptions of a man and a pickup truck at the motel that eventually pointed to Lewis. Lewis confessed to picking up Ms. Bracken, a prostitute, and murdering her. He was convicted of Ms. Bracken's murder and received life without parole. In another confession, Lewis admitted murdering another prostitute, Misty McGugin, in an Alabama motel room in January or February 1998 by strangling her with a rope and stabbing her with a knife. He wrapped her body in a tarp, carried it to her car, and dumped her body in the woods after having sex with it. After his confession, he led the police to Ms. McGugin's remains. Lewis received a death sentence for this murder.

Lewis also confessed to murdering two women in Georgia. He stated that he picked up a prostitute in 1993 on Stewart Avenue in Atlanta because he "just wanted to kill her." He drove her to a dirt pit near Charlie Brown Airport, had sex with her at knife point, and then choked and stabbed her to death. Lewis tried to show the police where he had put the remains, but the area had changed since the murder, and they could not locate her. In 2002, the police found the skeletal remains of this victim only 50 yards from where they had been searching. She was never identified.

The second Georgia murder Lewis confessed to was the murder of Peggy Grimes. Lewis picked her up on Stewart Avenue in 1993; he could tell that she was pregnant. He drove her to Douglas County and parked near a bridge. He pulled a hunting knife, held it to her throat, and walked her into a kudzu patch. After she stripped naked, he straddled her chest, pinning her arms to the ground with his knees, and then choked her and stabbed her in the throat and chest. He also tried to cut open her stomach to remove the baby. After he left her body, he drove to his uncle's house and hid the knife in a hollow garage support beam. The medical examiner re-examined the remains recovered at that crime scene in 1993 and found fetal bones in the recovered dirt. He also found damage to a rib on Ms. Grimes's skeleton consistent with a knife cut. The Crime Lab was able to identify the remains as Peggy Grimes's from DNA supplied by her mother. The police recovered the blood-stained knife from where Lewis said he had hidden it.

Additional evidence showed that in 1987 Lewis strangled a 5-year-old girl to unconsciousness in an elevator in his apartment complex. He spent five years in a mental hospital and a prison in Massachusetts for her attempted murder. After his release, he moved to the South. The State presented evidence of three more of Lewis's attacks on women, one in Georgia and two in or near Wal-Mart parking lots in Alabama, but they escaped his attempts to kidnap, rape, and murder them.

The evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury to find the statutory aggravating circumstances beyond a reasonable doubt.³

2. Lewis complains about the State's presentation of evidence of crimes other than those involving Peggy Grimes, but his argument is without merit. It is well-settled that in a sentencing trial the State may present evidence of a defendant's bad character, including previous convictions and non-adjudicated offenses.⁴ The non-statutory aggravating evidence presented by the State in the sentencing trial was therefore proper and admissible.⁵ Lewis's complaint that the prosecutor argued in closing that the jury should not let Lewis "escape punishment" is also without merit. When viewed in context, the prosecutor was simply arguing that Lewis should receive the maximum penalty for the murder of Peggy Grimes. This argument, to which Lewis did not object, was not improper.⁶

3. Lewis claims that the trial court erred by restricting the questioning of prospective jurors during voir dire, but this claim is not supported by the record. Even though the parties had the benefit of pretrial juror questionnaires, the voir dire in this case lasted two weeks and consumed over 2,300 pages of transcript. The parties questioned more than 120 prospective jurors individually during voir dire and the trial court excused approximately 70 of them for cause or hardship. The trial court also did not prevent Lewis from determining if prospective jurors would be inclined to a particular sentence for "malice murder." The trial court, after noting the confusion of a prospective juror over the use of the term "malice murder," suggested that Lewis's counsel may want to refrain from using the legal term "malice murder" when the prospective jurors had not been instructed on its definition. At no time did the trial court make a ruling that Lewis could not use the term "malice murder" and Lewis was not restricted in his questioning of prospective jurors with regard to possible bias toward a particular sentence for a defendant convicted of murder. In addition, the trial court properly prevented the parties from asking questions that called for the prospective jurors' prejudgment of the case.⁷ The voir dire was proper in this case because it was broad and thorough enough "to ascertain the fairness and impartiality of the prospective jurors."⁸

Lewis further complains that the trial court erred with some of its rulings on motions to excuse prospective jurors for cause.

a. Prospective jurors Clark, Johnson, Dyal, Osborne, Mitchell, Sellers, Bryant, Kehoe, Torstrick, Slay, and Carder. Lewis claims that the trial court erred by denying his motions to excuse these prospective jurors for cause due to their alleged predisposition to the death penalty or alleged bias against life with parole or life without parole as possible sentences. "The proper standard for determining the disqualification of a prospective juror based upon his views on capital punishment `is whether the juror's views would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.'"⁹ As a general proposition, a prospective juror is not disqualified because he or she is leaning for or against a death sentence or another possible sentence,¹⁰ but he or she is disqualified if possessed with an unwavering bias in favor of or against one of the possible sentences authorized by law, such that they could not meaningfully consider one of the three possible sentences as a verdict.¹¹ On appeal, our inquiry is whether the trial court's qualification or disqualification of the prospective juror is supported by the record as a whole.¹² An appellate court must pay deference to the finding of the trial court; this deference includes the trial court's resolution of any equivocations or conflicts in the prospective juror's responses on voir dire.¹³ "Whether to strike a juror for cause is within the discretion of the trial court and the trial court's rulings are proper absent some manifest abuse of discretion."¹⁴

Our review of the record shows that Lewis did not move to excuse prospective juror Osborne for cause and the trial court did not err by failing to excuse her sua sponte.¹⁵ In addition, this argument is moot with regard to prospective juror Slay because he was excused for medical reasons before jury selection.¹⁶ The remaining prospective jurors expressed a leaning for or against a particular sentence for a convicted murderer but none of them were irrevocably committed to voting against one of the three possible sentences. Despite some equivocation, all of these prospective jurors indicated that they could meaningfully consider all three possible sentences. We...