Mahone v. State, A00A2316.
| Decision Date | 19 January 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. A00A2316.,A00A2316. |
| Citation | 247 Ga. App. 596,544 S.E.2d 514 |
| Parties | MAHONE v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Brantley J. Swindell, Glennville, for appellant.
J. Thomas Durden, Jr., District Attorney, Jeffery N. Osteen, Joe G. Skeens, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellees.
Anthony Mahone was convicted by a jury on the charge of obstructing a corrections officer. His motion for new trial as amended was denied. Mahone appeals, contending that the trial court erroneously failed to instruct the jury on his sole defense of self-defense or justification and that his trial counsel's failure to request such a charge constituted ineffective assistance of counsel. Because the record shows that Mahone raised more than one defense, and because we cannot conclude that Mahone met his burden of showing ineffectiveness under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), we affirm.
Construed to uphold the jury's verdict, evidence was presented that James Berich, an officer at Georgia State Prison, was attempting to remove all prisoners from, or "clear," a particular corridor of the prison in order to allow inmates under protective custody to pass through the corridor. Berich saw Mahone walk through a cross-gate1 into the area he was attempting to clear, and he testified that he gave Mahone "several direct orders to return to the other side of the cross-gate." Mahone did not obey but acted like "he was going to walk around" Berich. He described Mahone as "forcing his way through the other personnel that we were taking in[to]" the area.
Berich stated that he put his arm up to stop Mahone because he heard a door open behind him. He turned to see who was coming through the door, and Mahone stepped toward him and bit his left forearm. Berich used the heel of his right hand to strike Mahone on the jaw. He testified that Mahone then cursed at him, stated that Berich could not "do anything now because you hit me first" and struck Berich on his jaw. Berich stated that before Mahone bit him, he did not touch Mahone in any way. A nurse who examined Berich after the incident testified that she observed an oval-shaped discoloration, like a bruise, on his left inner forearm and a reddened area on his chin. This nurse also performed a medical examination on Mahone and saw no visible injury.
The testimony of another corrections officer, Patricia Blount, corroborated that of Berich in certain respects. Blount was working in a control room that controlled several gates and observed the altercation between Berich and Mahone. She testified that she and Berich "gave the directives to clear the corridor." She opened a cross-gate, and while inmates on the corridor began to "clear off," Mahone continued walking on the corridor. Blount stated that she and Berich told Mahone that he should exit the corridor but that he acted in a belligerent manner and "continued towards Officer Berich." She testified that Berich gave Mahone a final order to exit the corridor, but Mahone did not comply, and According to Blount, Berich then "instinctively struck the inmate to discharge his teeth out of his arm." Because Blount then received a request to open another door, she was required to turn her attention away from Berich and Mahone, and she did not observe Mahone strike Berich.
Mahone's account of events differed from those of Berich and Blount. He testified that he lagged about 50 feet behind other prisoners walking in the corridor because he stopped to obtain a pass to visit the hospital. He then walked to the gate at the end of the corridor and waited for it to be opened. After the gate was opened, he walked about five feet and saw Berich approaching him and yelling for him to Mahone testified that he told Berich to "[l]ook here, that he wanted to catch up with the other inmates." According to Mahone, Berich then "just went off on me, just jumped out of the blue, just started yelling and screaming at me." When asked how the first physical contact occurred between Berich and himself, Mahone answered that when he "started around" Berich, Berich "throwed [sic] up his arms and I ran into his arms, and he knocked me back and just slapped me across the face." He testified that Berich hit him first. Mahone claimed that after Berich...
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