Moulder v. State

• Docket Number: S23A0508
• Decision Date: 21 August 2023
• Citation: Moulder v. State, 317 Ga. 43, 891 S.E.2d 903 (Ga. 2023)
• Parties: MOULDER v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

317 Ga. 43

891 S.E.2d 903

MOULDER v. The STATE.

S23A0508

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: August 21, 2023

Brian Steel, The Steel Law Firm, P.C., 1800 Peachtree Street, N.W., Suite 300, Atlanta, Georgia 30309, Ashleigh Bartkus Merchant, The Merchant Law Firm, P.C., 701 Whitlock Avenue, Suite J43, Marietta, Georgia 30064, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Elizabeth Haase Brock, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Linda Jeanne Dunikoski, A.D.A., Flynn Duncan Broady, Jr., Cobb County District Attorney's Office, 70 Haynes Street, Third Floor, Marietta, Georgia 30090, for Appellee.

Warren, Justice.

In March 2015, Joshua Moulder was convicted of malice murder, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the July 2006 shooting death of Anthony Rudolph and was also convicted of influencing a witness in 2014.He appeals those convictions, arguing that the evidence was not sufficient to support his convictions related to the 2006 shooting and that counsel provided ineffective assistance by: not arguing that the State failed to prove the statute of limitation tolling provision alleged for the non-murder crimes committed in 2006; failing to raise a hearsay and Confrontation Clause objection to certain testimony given by the lead detective; failing to correctly advise Moulder about whether his prior convictions could be used to impeach him if he testified; inaccurately describing the reasonable-doubt standard in closing argument; and failing to object to a jury charge about statements made during formal court proceedings.Because the evidence was sufficient to support Moulder's convictions and he has failed to prove his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, we affirm.¹

1.Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at Moulder's trial showed the following.In November 2005, Rudolph was released on parole from an Ohio prison and started living in Cleveland, Ohio.In July 2006, Rudolph told his friend Clarence Marshall that he was going to drive to Atlanta with "this guy that he met in the penitentiary called ‘Youngster’ " for a drug deal; that he and Youngster were each going to contribute $15,000; and that Youngster was from the Atlanta area and had been paroled to Dayton, Ohio, in May or June 2006.²Similarly, Rudolph told his sister that he was going to pick up a friend, "Youngster or somebody," in Xenia, Ohio.³

On July 18, 2006, Rudolph rented a car in Ohio, and at 6:15 a.m. on July 20, he rented a hotel room in Cobb County, Georgia for one night.The next day, a man, whom the hotel staff could not describe, extended the room rental for another night.On July 21, Rudolph called Marshall, "sound[ing] kind of upset," and said that "he was supposed to be home by now."Rudolph also said that he and Youngster were in a hotel room, and Marshall heard a man laughing in the background.Marshall called Rudolph back a few hours later because he had "never seen [Rudolph] upset" or "heard him talk like that," but Rudolph did not answer.

On July 22, after the 11:00 a.m. hotel check-out time had passed and housekeeping had knocked on the door of Rudolph's room but gotten no reply, the hotel manager called the police.Responding police officers discovered Rudolph lying in one of the two beds in the room.He had been killed by a gunshot to the back of his head.The murder weapon was never recovered, but a firearms expert testified that the bullet was fired from a revolver.According to his sister, Rudolph had a wallet, but no wallet or money (other than three dimes) was found in the room.Rudolph's cell phone was also not found.The hotel room door had been locked, there were no signs of a struggle, and Rudolph looked like he had been sleeping when shot, which led Detective Mitchell Plumb—the lead detective on the case—to conclude that Rudolph knew his shooter.The car Rudolph had rented was found outside a boarded-up apartment complex.Detective Plumb testified that a trail from the apartment complex through the woods "led directly to where one of Moulder's family lived at in an apartment."That location was also about 1,000 feet from an address where Moulder used to live.

Moulder, who was from the Atlanta area but had served time in prison with Rudolph in Ohio, was released on parole in May 2006 and began living in Xenia, Ohio.He was between 12 and 14 years younger than Rudolph.Rudolph's phone records showed that his phone called Moulder's sister's phone seven times on the morning of July 20, beginning at 4:19 a.m. Moulder's sister told Detective Plumb that Moulder had called her from a blocked number and asked if she needed any money; she said no.The sister testified that some time after the call, she saw Moulder at their mother's house in Georgia.Detective Plumb contacted law enforcement officials in Ohio, and on July 28, they located and arrested Moulder for violating his parole by possessing crack cocaine, among other reasons.When he was arrested, he had a "little over $800" in his pocket.

Detective Plumb interviewed Moulder in Ohio.⁴Moulder told Detective Plumb that he had served time with and was good friends with Rudolph and that he knew Rudolph was traveling south with another person for a drug deal.The detective suggested that the other person was called "Youngster," and Moulder agreed.Moulder further explained that Youngster had set up the deal and although Moulder gave Rudolph $1250 to be used in the deal, he did not go with Youngster and Rudolph to complete the transaction.Moulder maintained that he had not left Ohio during the period of time in which the drug deal and Rudolph's murder occurred in Atlanta.

When asked to describe "Youngster," Moulder said that Youngster had been housed in a different prison pod than the one he and Rudolph lived in and described Youngster as "short" and "dark skinned" with two gold teeth and " ‘Youngster’ tattooed across his shoulder blades."Detective Plumb was not able to identify Youngster based on this information.⁵He and several other witnesses called by the State testified that Moulder was not known by the alias or nickname "Youngster."After about one year, the case went cold.

In 2013, the case was picked up by a cold-case investigator, who reached out to Aletha Hughes, who was dating Moulder at the time of the crimes in 2006 but who had since separated from Moulder and moved to Indiana.Hughes traveled to Georgia and gave a statement to the District Attorney's office on December 18, 2014.⁶Her statement was consistent with her trial testimony, which was as follows.On the evening of July 21, 2006, Moulder called her "in an urgency" and said that he was at his mother's house in Georgia and needed Hughes "to come get him now."Hughes did not have enough money to drive from Ohio to Georgia, so Moulder's mother wired her money, which Hughes used to rent a car.She started driving that night, arriving in Georgia by "the early morning hours" of July 22.She met Moulder, who did not have any belongings with him, in a parking lot, and then they"immediately" drove back to Ohio.⁷

Hughes also testified that about two weeks before she drove to Georgia, Moulder showed her a revolver, and shortly before he left, he told her that "he and his buddy from prison [were] going somewhere."She testified that when Moulder was told soon after he got back from his trip that police were looking for him, he told Hughes that "something had happened to his friend, and they wanted to question him about it."She asked him, "did he do it, and he said no."When she said he needed to talk to the police, Moulder responded, "F**k the police."Hughes had not given the police this information in 2006 because she had "loved" and "trusted" Moulder.

On December 19, 2014, Moulder was arrested for Rudolph's murder.Moulder did not testify at trial.His defense was that he was not "Youngster," and that even if he was in Georgia at the time of the crimes, the State had not proven that he traveled to Georgia with Rudolph or was ever in Rudolph's hotel room; Moulder emphasized the lack of forensic evidence at the scene of Rudolph's murder and argued that the State had not completed a thorough investigation.

2.Moulder argues that the evidence presented at trial was not sufficient to support his convictions for the crimes allegedly committed in 2006 under Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560(1979).⁸In evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of constitutional due process, we view all of the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and consider whether any rational juror could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted.SeeJackson , 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781;Clark v. State , 315 Ga. 423, 427, 883 S.E.2d 317(2023)."We leave to the jury the resolution of conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence, credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to be derived from the facts."Clark , 315 Ga. at 427, 883 S.E.2d 317(citation and punctuation omitted).Moulder also challenges his convictions for the 2006 crimes under OCGA § 24-14-6, which says: "To warrant a conviction on circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.""Whether a hypothesis is reasonable or not is for the jury to decide."Davenport v. State , 309 Ga. 385, 388-389, 846 S.E.2d 83(2020)(citation and punctuation omitted).

The evidence discussed above was sufficient to support Moulder's convictions as a matter of federal due process under Jackson .The evidence was...