Norwood v. State
| Decision Date | 22 January 2001 |
| Docket Number | No. S00A1626.,S00A1626. |
| Citation | 273 Ga. 352,541 S.E.2d 373 |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
| Parties | NORWOOD v. The STATE. |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
William D. Phillips, Macon, for appellant.
Charles H. Weston, District Attorney, Myra H. Kline, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tammie J. Philbrick, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
This appeal is from O'Dell Norwood, Jr.'s conviction for felony murder.1 The testimony at trial showed that Norwood, Mosley, and Moss went to Fowler's home to collect $10 which Fowler had refused to pay because the drugs for which the money was owed were fake. Moss testified at trial that Norwood, gun in hand, entered the home with Mosley, a fight ensued, a shot was fired, and the three of them ran away. When they gathered again at Norwood's cousin's home, he gave her the gun for safekeeping and told the others that he had shot Fowler in the chest. His cousin gave the weapon to the police, who determined that it was the weapon which killed Fowler. Norwood admitted to police officers that he had shot Fowler in an attempt to rob him.
1. The evidence adduced at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Norwood guilty of felony murder. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Jones v. State, 265 Ga. 138(1), 454 S.E.2d 482 (1995).
2. Some eight months after the conviction, Norwood produced an affidavit of a person who worked with Moss in which she averred that Moss told her that Mosley committed the crime. Norwood's sole enumeration of error on appeal is that the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial based on the affidavit. In support of his assertion of error, Norwood relies on Fugitt v. State, 251 Ga. 451(1), 307 S.E.2d 471 (1983), for the proposition that a conviction based on testimony which is knowingly and wilfully false cannot stand. The flaw in Norwood's argument is that the affidavit regarding Moss's post-trial statement is merely impeaching of Moss's testimony and does not establish as fact that the testimony was knowingly and wilfully false.
[Cit.] A...
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...is merely impeaching of [his] testimony and does not establish as fact that [it] was knowingly and wilfully false.” Norwood v. State, 273 Ga. 352(2), 541 S.E.2d 373 (2001). Moreover, Ms. Bradham's testimony was not so material that it would probably produce a different verdict, as Sapp's st......
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...any kind that the State's witness' testimony [was the] purest fabrication.(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Norwood v. State , 273 Ga. 352, 352–353 (2), 541 S.E.2d 373 (2001). Huff acknowledges this rule, and we decline his invitation to disapprove it. Moreover, the trial court expressly......
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