Moore v. State
| Decision Date | 18 March 1986 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 42688,42689,s. 42688 |
| Citation | 340 S.E.2d 888,255 Ga. 519 |
| Parties | MOORE v. The STATE (Two Cases). |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Emerson D. Henderson, Mims & Henderson, Tifton, for Steve Lamar Moore, Delton Wayne Moore.
David E. Perry, Dist. Atty., Tifton, Robert C. Wilmot, Asst. Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Eddie Snelling, Jr., Staff Asst. Atty. Gen., for State.
Steve Lamar Moore and his brother Delton Wayne Moore were jointly indicted and tried for the October 3, 1984, murder and armed robbery of Floyd Stewart. Each was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1 They appeal. We affirm Delton Wayne Moore's conviction, and reverse Steve Lamar Moore's.
1. Appellant Steve Lamar Moore brings two enumerations of error. In his first enumeration he raises the general grounds, and we find that this enumeration has merit.
The state introduced evidence which established that Delton Wayne Moore owed over a thousand dollars in motor vehicle fines to the City of Tifton Recorder's Court, and that bonds of over a thousand dollars had been assessed against Steve Lamar Moore in pending unadjudicated traffic cases. Between 9:30 and 11:00 on the evening of October 2, 1984, the brothers visited Robert Daniel Dowdy. Dowdy testified that they told him they were leaving for Florida that night, and asked him if he would like to go with them. He declined their offer. Delton Wayne Moore's girlfriend, Troy Lynn Berry, and the co-appellants were at the victim's residence the night preceding the murder. On that evening Delton Wayne Moore told Troy Lynn Berry that if the victim did not provide him with money to pay his fines "he was going to bust his m__________ f__________ head open and get the money and leave town." According to Berry, she and Delton Wayne Moore left the victim's home between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m., leaving Steve Lamar with Stewart. Berry said that as she and Delton Wayne left the trailer, Delton Wayne told Steve Lamar "to get up and get his clothes ready, when he got back they was leaving." Steve Lamar said "he would have the stuff ready." Delton Wayne and Berry went to Berry's trailer. Delton Wayne stayed there until between 8:30 and 9:00. Berry testified that before Delton Wayne left he said that "he was going to ask [Stewart] for the money and if he told him no he was just going to beg him for it; and ... if he still told him no he was just going to put a little scare him into him." She asked him whether he was going to hurt Stewart, and Delton Wayne told her he would not.
Two neighbors of the victim testified that between 8:30 and 9:30 they saw Delton Wayne and the victim drive past their residences in a car resembling Delton Wayne's. Two other witnesses testified that on the morning of the murder they observed Floyd Stewart in downtown Tifton near a parked car similar to Delton Wayne's. One witness, Donald Dove, said that between 9:00 and 9:30 he saw Stewart, who was a disabled veteran, being helped in or out of the car by an unidentified man. The other witness, Charles Sanderson, saw Stewart and an unidentified man near the car between 9:30 and 11:30.
Ronnie Vaughn testified that at 7:45 a.m. he visited the victim's trailer and talked with him through a window. He did not see either brother. At about noon he returned to the victim's trailer, received no response to his knock, and left. He returned at about 2:45 p.m. and discovered the victim's body after gaining entry through a window. An autopsy the following day revealed that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.
The brothers drove to Texas, and at about 8 a.m. on October 4, 1984, Delton Wayne called Betty Rineair, Troy Lynn Berry's aunt, from Dallas. Rineair testified that she asked Delton Wayne whether he knew "that that man had got killed," to which Delton Wayne replied, "yes, ... he was going to give himself up and come back." The brothers returned and were arrested on October 7, 1984.
With respect to Steve Lamar Moore we find that Brown v. State, 250 Ga. 862, 864(1), 302 S.E.2d 347 (1983).
In this case there is no direct evidence that Steve Lamar Moore participated in the bludgeoning of Floyd Stewart, or indeed that he was even present when the killing occurred. There is some circumstantial evidence that he had a motive for the killing; that he was present during the killing; and that he fled thereafter. However, aside from this circumstantial evidence of motive, presence, and flight there is no evidence tending to identify Steve Lamar Moore as a participant in the felony murder of Floyd Stewart, and the evidence is therefore insufficient as a matter of law to sustain Steve Lamar Moore's conviction for felony murder. Brown v. State, supra, 250 Ga. 862, 302 S.E.2d 347.
2. Steve Lamar Moore's second enumeration of error is mooted by our holding in Division One, infra.
3. In his sole enumeration of error Delton Wayne Moore asserts that the trial court erred in admitting five post-arrest letters which he wrote from jail to Troy Lynn Berry. The letters in question contained exhortations to withdraw a pre-trial statement to police and to avoid testifying at trial, because, according to appellant's letters, Berry was the state's "star witness" and if she testified he would be "finished." Appellant argues that he did not have an adequate opportunity to cross-examine Berry concerning the contents of the letters.
In order to resolve this contention it is necessary to review the events leading to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Fitts v. State
...proof he knowingly provided the guns to his cousins or that he otherwise participated in planning the crimes); Moore v. State , 255 Ga. 519, 520-21 (1), 340 S.E.2d 888 (1986) (insufficient evidence to support one brother's murder conviction even though both brothers had motive and fled toge......
-
Ellis v. State, S12A1923.
...the scene of the crimes, but was a party to them. See Parks v. State, 272 Ga. 353, 354, 529 S.E.2d 127 (2000). Cf. Moore v. State, 255 Ga. 519, 521(1), 340 S.E.2d 888 (1986) (evidence was insufficient where it was only circumstantial and showed merely that defendant had motive to kill victi......
-
Payne v. State
...that they were accomplices to the murder. But motive alone is not enough to make a person an accomplice. See Moore v. State , 255 Ga. 519, 521 (1), 340 S.E.2d 888 (1986) (insufficient evidence that appellant was a party to the crime of murder notwithstanding that he had motive).6 The partie......
-
State v. Cash
...that non-shooter was a party to the murder, but cooperated and concealed the death out of fear of the shooter); Moore v. State , 255 Ga. 519, 521, 340 S.E.2d 888, 890 (1986) (some circumstantial evidence of motive, presence, and flight but no direct evidence that defendant was even present ......