Phillips v. State
| Decision Date | 20 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. S99A1100.,S99A1100. |
| Citation | 521 S.E.2d 573,271 Ga. 489 |
| Parties | PHILLIPS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Sullivan & Sturdivant, Harold A. Sturdivant, Michele W. Ogletree, Griffin, for appellant.
William T. McBroom III, District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Mary Beth Westmoreland, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Angelica M. Woo, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
This appeal is from Raquel Twan Phillips's conviction of murder and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime.1 The evidence adduced at trial showed that earlier on the evening of the shooting involved here, Phillips and a group of friends argued with the victim, Pamela Burden, and one of her sisters. When Phillips produced a pistol during the argument, Burden offered to fight if Phillips would put away the gun. Phillips refused and threatened to kill someone that night, whereupon Burden retreated into a nearby house. When Burden and her sister emerged, Phillips and her friends were standing across the street, from which location Phillips taunted Burden. When another of Burden's sisters arrived, Burden began to approach Phillips and her friends. Phillips produced her pistol again; Burden offered again to fight if Phillips would put down the gun; and Phillips shot Burden in the forehead and then fled. A spent shell casing found at the scene was determined to come from a 9mm pistol found more than a block away. Although Phillips claimed at trial that the gun fired accidentally, a weapons examiner found that pistol to fire normally. Phillips sought to introduce into evidence Burden's conviction for aggravated assault, but the trial court ruled that the necessary prima facie case had not been made and excluded the evidence.
1. The evidence adduced at trial and set out above was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Phillips guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of murder and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979); Lee v. State, 270 Ga. 626, 513 S.E.2d 225 (1999).
2. Phillips enumerates as error the trial court's exclusion of evidence that Burden had previously been convicted of aggravated assault. Before evidence of a victim's prior violent acts can be admitted, the defendant must, among other requirements, make a prima facie showing of justification. Lewis v. State, 268 Ga. 83(2), 485 S.E.2d 212 (1997). Haynes v. State, 234 Ga.App. 272(2), 507 S.E.2d 151 (1998). Phillips did not make that showing....
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