Miller v. State

• Decision Date: 17 October 2011
• Docket Number: Nos. S11A0752,S11A0914.,s. S11A0752
• Parties: MILLER v. The STATE (two cases).
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

11 FCDR 3176
289 Ga. 854
717 S.E.2d 179

MILLER
v.
The STATE (two cases).

Nos. S11A0752

S11A0914.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Oct. 17, 2011.

[717 S.E.2d 182]

Jimmonique R.S. Rodgers, Atlanta, for appellant (case no. S11A0752).

Cromwell & Hibbert, Henry Allen Hibbert, Atlanta, for appellant (case no. S11A0914).

Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Paige Reese Whitaker, Lenny I. Krick, Marc A. Mallon, Clinton Keith Rucker, Asst. Dist. Attys., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Mary Beth Westmoreland, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher Robert Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.THOMPSON, Justice.

[289 Ga. 854] Appellants Tonya and Jabaris Miller (mother and son) were convicted of malice murder, arson, and other related offenses in connection with the death of Cheryl Miranda.¹ Tonya appeals in Case No. S11A0752; Jabaris appeals in Case No. S11A0914.

Case Nos. S11A0752 and S11A0914

Viewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows that Miranda and Tonya had been roommates in Tampa, Florida and were involved in a turbulent relationship for some time prior to Miranda's death. In May 2004, Miranda obtained two temporary protective injunctions against Tonya in Florida and Tonya was arrested for violating one of them.

[289 Ga. 855] In January 2005, Miranda contacted a close family friend and asked the friend to meet her at a local nightclub. When the friend arrived she observed that Miranda's face was bruised and bloody, her eyeglasses were broken, and a front tooth had been knocked out; Miranda informed her friend that she had gotten into a fight with “Tonya.”

Miranda was last seen alive on February 27, 2005. On February 28, 2005, cell phone towers tracked Miranda's cell phone as it traveled from Tampa to Atlanta. During that time, Jabaris placed dozens of calls from Miranda's cell phone to his friends and relatives in Georgia. One such call was made to a cousin explaining that he had run out of gas in Fort Valley and asking her to bring money to him. During this conversation, the cousin heard Tonya's voice in the background reiterating the request for gas money. On March 1, 2005, appellants unexpectedly appeared at an apartment on Welcome All Road in Atlanta, rented by some of their relatives. Jabaris drove there in Miranda's white Nissan pickup truck which remained in the apartment parking lot for the next four days with the bed of the truck covered.² He

[717 S.E.2d 183]

told a cousin that he had gotten into an argument with a woman in Florida but did not want to elaborate.

On the morning of March 4, 2005, the Nissan truck was found engulfed in flames off the side of a road a few hundred yards from the same apartment complex. An accelerant had been used to start the fire. Responders found Miranda's body in the bed of the burning truck. She had been bound at the wrists, choked, stabbed, and beaten to death, then doused with charcoal lighter fluid and set on fire. Forensic evidence established that death had occurred two to four days earlier.

Jabaris was arrested shortly thereafter at the home of another relative, Tamela Givan. Givan identified certain luggage that belonged to appellants. Those bags were searched pursuant to a warrant; they contained Miranda's cell phone and credit cards, several pawn tickets issued to Miranda, and “hundreds” of documents in Miranda's name.

Jabaris was taken to the police department where Miranda warnings were administered and a waiver was executed. He gave a lengthy custodial statement in which he admitted taking possession of Miranda's truck in Tampa and, accompanied by Tonya, driving the truck to his aunt's apartment on Welcome All Road in Atlanta. He also claimed that after a couple of days he discovered Miranda's body in the bed of the truck in the apartment parking lot, and that he got [289 Ga. 856] “rid of it” by dousing the truck with lighter fluid and setting it on fire.

Tonya was arrested several days later at Givan's home. She too received Miranda warnings and executed a waiver. In a custodial statement, she told the officers that she and Miranda had been roommates and that Miranda had locked her out of the apartment and had pawned her furniture and other personal belongings. An ornamental knife and nunchucks, which Miranda had displayed on her mantle in Tampa, were seized from appellants' bag. Forensic evidence established that these could have been used to inflict the fatal injuries.

1. When construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find both appellants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which they were convicted. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Both appellants assert that their Sixth Amendment rights to confront the witnesses against them were violated when the trial court allowed Raul Palomino, a Florida Circuit Court judge, to testify to the contents of three petitions for temporary protective injunctions that were filed in the Florida court in which he presided. The first two petitions were filed by Miranda in May 2004 and sought protective injunctions against Tonya. The third petition was filed by Tonya in June 2004 and sought an injunction against Miranda. ³

At trial, the State provided Judge Palomino with copies of Miranda's two petitions, and he was asked to read the allegations into evidence. Trial counsel for both appellants raised continuing objections to the contents of the petitions on grounds that the testimony violated their rights to confrontation, and the statements constituted inadmissible hearsay. The objections were overruled, and Miranda's sworn allegations were read into evidence. These included Miranda's claims that Tonya “threatens to kill me, threatens to stab me, beat me, [and] I'm in fear, great fear of my life.” Miranda also alleged that Tonya had “broken into [Miranda's apartment] through back sliding glass doors,” that she “came at [her] striking [her] in the back,” and that Tonya is known to possess “knives, swords, guns, five stars.”

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const., Amend. VI. This right is binding against the states under the [289 Ga. 857] Fourteenth Amendment.

[717 S.E.2d 184]

Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). The United States Supreme Court reexamined the Confrontation Clause in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004), and declared that statements which are testimonial in nature and made by an unavailable declarant are inadmissible in criminal proceedings against a defendant who has had no prior opportunity to cross-examine that declarant. Id., 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Crawford defined “ [t]estimony ... [as] typically a solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Id., 541 U.S. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354. The Court identified a “ core class of ‘testimonial’ statements, ... [to include] ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent—that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially.' ” Id. Our cases have followed suit. See, e.g., Pitts v. State, 280 Ga. 288, 627 S.E.2d 17 (2006) (differentiating between “testimonial” 911 calls, in which the caller seeks to establish evidentiary facts that an objective person might foresee being used in a future prosecution from “non-testimonial” calls made to avert a crime in progress or in seeking help from immediate danger).

In the present case, Miranda's verified petitions were read into evidence by Judge Palomino to show the violent history between Tonya and Miranda, with the intention of “establish[ing] or prov[ing] past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.” Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813, 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266, 165 L.Ed.2d 224 (2006). See also Michigan v. Bryant, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 1143, 179 L.Ed.2d 93 (2011). Thus, the sworn statements were testimonial in nature. Davis, supra, 547 U.S. at 822, 126 S.Ct. 2266. Because Miranda was an unavailable declarant, and because Tonya had no opportunity to cross-examine her, the trial court violated Tonya's Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against her by allowing the...