Mosley v. State

• Decision Date: 27 January 2020
• Docket Number: S19A1301
• Citation: 307 Ga. 711,838 S.E.2d 289
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court
• Parties: MOSLEY v. The STATE.

307 Ga. 711

838 S.E.2d 289

MOSLEY

v.The STATE.

S19A1301

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: January 27, 2020

Brian J. Huffman, Jr., for appellant.

Meg E. Heap, District Attorney, Christine S. Barker, Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Matthew D. O'Brien, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Benham, Justice.

Appellant Rashard Mosley appeals his convictions for numerous offenses, including the murder of Ivory Carter and the attempted murder and attempted armed robbery of Frederick Knight.¹ On appeal, Mosley contends that the evidence was insufficient to sustain his convictions, that the trial court erroneously permitted the State to elicit various inadmissible hearsay statements, that the trial court erroneously permitted the State to adduce "intrinsic evidence," and that trial counsel was ineffective. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

Viewed in a light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence adduced at trial established as follows. In late July 2014, Mosley and his two co-indictees, LaQuan Brown and Keith Johnson, checked in to a Savannah hotel; video surveillance from the hotel captured the trio on the property. Shortly after checking in, the trio left on foot to "meet some dude for some money." Johnson testified that Mosley was armed at the time and mentioned that the rendezvous was actually a robbery setup. According to Johnson, the trio arrived at the pre-arranged location, and he watched Brown get into a vehicle when it arrived. Johnson testified that Mosley approached the driver’s side of the vehicle, that Mosley "tussled" with the male driver – later identified as Ivory Carter – and that a gun was fired while the two men fought. Johnson explained to the jury that the driver fled on foot after being shot and that he and his co-indictees fled in the man’s blue SUV. Carter died as a result of the gunshot wounds. A few days later, Brown and Mosley went to stay at the home of Brown’s cousin, Mary Singleton; the pair arrived at the residence in an SUV. While there, Singleton overheard the pair discussing a robbery that netted approximately $500.

Later that week, Brown placed a telephone call to Frederick Knight and arranged to meet him in the vicinity of Singleton’s residence. When Knight arrived, Brown got "halfway" into Knight’s truck; Mosley approached the vehicle on the driver’s side and placed a firearm to Knight’s head, instructing him not to do anything. Knight pressed the accelerator and sped away, and shots were fired at his truck. Knight immediately reported the incident to police and later identified Mosley as one of the assailants. Singleton testified that, as to this incident, she heard Mosley and Brown discussing how it "went wrong."

Law enforcement later arrested Mosley and Brown at Singleton’s residence and discovered Carter’s battered Nissan Murano SUV parked in an adjacent lot. A search of the home revealed the firearm used against Knight and the keys to Carter’s SUV secreted under a mattress. The jury heard testimony from Singleton that she lived with kids and did not keep guns in the residence; she also testified that she observed Mosley place the firearm under the mattress.

1. Mosley first contends that the evidence against him was insufficient with respect to the offenses involving Knight, arguing that the "evidence was insubstantial," that it was "vague," and that it merely cast on Mosley a "grave suspicion" of guilt. It is well settled, however, that we view the evidence in the "light most favorable to the verdict, with deference to the jury’s assessment of the weight and credibility of the evidence." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hayes v. State , 292 Ga. 506, 506, 739 S.E.2d 313 (2013). Here, Knight identified Mosley as his assailant, the firearm used during the offense was discovered in Singleton’s residence (where Mosley was staying), and Mosley was identified as having hidden the firearm where it was discovered. Further, Singleton overheard Mosley make incriminating statements about the robbery going "wrong."² With respect to Carter, Johnson testified that Mosley was armed on the night of Carter’s murder and that the arrangement to meet Carter was a setup; Johnson also identified Mosley as the triggerman in Carter’s killing; Mosley arrived at Singleton’s residence in the victim’s vehicle; and the keys to the SUV were found alongside a firearm that Mosley concealed under a mattress. Accordingly, the evidence recounted above was plainly sufficient to support Mosley’s convictions. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). Therefore, this claim is without merit.

2. Over Mosley’s objection, the trial court permitted the State to present evidence and testimony concerning two uncharged offenses – the burglary of Prince Owens and the armed robbery and aggravated assault of George Jackson. The trial court concluded that evidence of the uncharged offenses was admissible "as intrinsic evidence of the same series of transactions as the crimes charged in the instant indictment." Mosley continues to argue on appeal that the trial court erred in this respect. We disagree.

While OCGA § 24-4-404 (b) ("Rule 404 (b)") generally controls the admission of other acts evidence, also known as "extrinsic evidence,"

evidence of criminal activity other than the charged offense is not "extrinsic" under Rule 404 (b), and thus falls outside the scope of the Rule, when it is (1) an uncharged offense which arose out of the same transaction or series of transactions as the charged offense, (2) necessary to complete the story of the crime, or (3) inextricably intertwined with the evidence regarding the charged offense.

(Citations and punctuation omitted; emphasis in original.) United States v. Edouard , 485 F.3d 1324, 1344 (II) (C) (11th Cir. 2007). See also Smith v. State , 302 Ga. 717 (4), 808 S.E.2d 661 (2017).

[E]vidence pertaining to the chain of events explaining the context, motive, and set-up of the crime is properly admitted if it is linked in time and circumstances with the charged crime, or forms an integral and natural part of an account of the crime, or is necessary to complete the story of the crime for the jury.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Williams v. State , 302 Ga. 474, 485-486 (IV) (d), 807 S.E.2d 350 (2017). Finally, "[t]he evidence must also meet the balancing test of OCGA § 24-4-403 [ (‘Rule 403’) ]." Clark v. State , 306 Ga. 367, 374 (4), 829 S.E.2d 306 (2019). We review the trial court’s ruling for abuse of discretion. See Fleming v. State , 306 Ga. 240, 245 (3) (a), 830 S.E.2d 129 (2019).

As to the burglary, the jury heard testimony that, in late July 2014 – around the same time as the other charged offenses – Brown contacted Owens asking to be picked up at a local apartment complex. Owens arrived at the meeting spot and contacted Brown by phone; although Brown advised Owens that she would be "out in a minute," she never appeared. Owens eventually returned home and discovered that his home had been burglarized. The jury learned that Owens again attempted to reach out to Brown, but a male answered the call and, further, that the telephone number used to contact Owens was also used to contact Carter, the murder victim.

That same week, George Jackson was driving in the vicinity of Singleton’s residence when he heard someone call out his name and then saw people on bicycles steer in front of his vehicle; Jackson stopped his SUV and two individuals jumped into his vehicle. One of the individuals, a woman, brandished a gun and demanded that Jackson turn over his keys. Following a struggle for the firearm, Jackson escaped on foot; his cellular telephone and car keys were taken from the vehicle. Jackson later identified Brown in a photo array, indicating that she "favored" the woman from the incident, and Jackson’s keys were found hidden under the mattress in Singleton’s residence.

Though Brown and Mosley were not charged with all of the same offenses, the evidence suggests that Brown and Mosley engaged in a week-long crime spree. The burglary of Owens "was a link in the chain of events leading up to [Carter’s] murder." See Brown v. State , 307 Ga. 24, 29 (2), 834 S.E.2d 40 (2019). Likewise, the incident involving Jackson occurred within days of Carter’s murder and the day before the armed robbery of Knight; the incident involving Jackson occurred just blocks from Singleton’s residence, and Singleton’s telephone number was used in both offenses. Further, evidence from the incident involving Jackson was discovered alongside evidence from both Carter’s murder and the incident involving Knight. The evidence of the uncharged offenses was, as the trial court concluded, evidence of the same series of transactions as the crimes charged in the indictment. See Williams v. State , 342 Ga. App. 564 (1), 804 S.E.2d 668 (2017) (evidence of uncharged carjacking admissible as intrinsic evidence where it occurred in the middle of a three-day carjacking spree and where evidence from the uncharged offense helped connect defendant to charged offenses). See also Johnson v. State , 348 Ga. App. 831 (1), 823 S.E.2d 351 (2019) ; Baughns v. State , 335 Ga. App. 600 (1), 782 S.E.2d 494 (2016).

Further, though the intrinsic evidence indirectly implicated Mosley in additional criminal acts and had only minimal evidentiary value, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in concluding that the probative value of this evidence was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. See Olds v. State , 299 Ga. 65, 70 (2), 786 S.E.2d 633 (2016) (recognizing the well-established principles that "[t]he major function of Rule 403 is to exclude matter of scant or cumulative probative force, dragged in by the heels for the sake of its prejudicial effect" and that "the exclusion of evidence under [that...