Prickett v. State

• Decision Date: 23 August 2022
• Docket Number: S22A0531
• Parties: PRICKETT v. STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

314 Ga. 435

877 S.E.2d 573

PRICKETT

v.STATE.

S22A0531

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: August 23, 2022

Kenneth Wayne Sheppard, The Office of the Appellate Defender, 270 Washington Street, Suite 5198, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Michael Steven Webb, Office of the Appellate Defender, 270 Washington Street, Suite 5161, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Parisia Faith Sarfarazi, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Fani T. Willis, District Attorney, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, Deputy D.A., Kevin Christopher Armstrong, Senior A.D.A., Fulton County District Attorney's Office, 136 Pryor Street, 4th Floor, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, Juliana Sleeper, Assistant County Attorney, Fulton County - Office of the Fulton County Attorney, 141 Pryor Street, SW, Suite 4038, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellee.

McMillian, Justice.

Santron Prickett appeals his conviction for felony murder and other charges in connection with the death of Antwan Curry.¹ On appeal, Prickett asserts that the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial because (1) he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel when his attorney failed to stipulate to his status as a felon, thereby tainting the jury with evidence of Prickett's prior criminal conviction; (2) his constitutional right to be present at all critical stages of the trial was violated when the trial court conferred with counsel out of his presence 26 times during trial; and (3) the trial court failed to rebuke the prosecutor and declare a mistrial, or, in the alternative, give a curative instruction to the jury following defense counsel's objection to an improper comment by the prosecutor during closing arguments. Because we determine that the trial court erred in sentencing Prickett, we vacate his convictions and sentences and remand the case for resentencing, but we otherwise affirm.

The evidence at trial showed that on the afternoon of March 15, 2010, Curry stopped at an apartment complex in Fulton County, and purchased marijuana. At around 1:00 p.m., Curry became involved in a physical altercation with Prickett at the complex. Five witnesses, who all knew Prickett, testified at trial that they observed the altercation.

Laketa Smith was across the street from the apartment complex when she saw Prickett "tussling" with another man and heard two gunshots. She told police at the time that Prickett pulled out a gun and shot the other man, but she testified at trial that Prickett did not have a gun.² After the shots were fired, Prickett ran away. The other man started to follow him but stopped when two other men came up to him.

Willie Wilson was outside his apartment when he saw Prickett and another man fighting, and it looked like Prickett was being beaten up. Prickett was yelling, "[G]et this f*****g n****r off me." While they were fighting, Wilson heard a "pop" when a gun went off. Wilson testified at trial that it looked like the other man had the gun, but he told police at the time that he did not know who had the gun. The other man was shot in the leg, and Prickett was bleeding from his hand. Prickett started running after he was shot, leaving the other man in the parking lot on his knees.

That same day, Bianca Haney heard a verbal altercation between Prickett and another man at the apartment complex. She saw the other man go back to his truck and then charge at Prickett. The two men engaged in "a tussle" on the ground, and the other man, who appeared to be winning the fight, was on top of Prickett. Haney heard shots, but she never saw who had the gun. Everybody started running, and Prickett ran past her. She did not see what happened next, but she heard more gunshots.

Harriett Feggins said that she was sitting in her car at the apartment complex when she saw an altercation involving Prickett and another man. She observed the other man go to his truck, get a handgun, and head toward Prickett. Prickett turned around, and the two men started scuffling. At first she thought they were just wrestling, but it appeared "pretty intense." Then she heard a shot and saw Prickett grab his hand and run away.

Keon Burns testified that he was at the apartment complex when he heard Prickett and another man³ arguing about the fact that the man bought marijuana from someone other than Prickett.

Prickett shot the man in the leg. As the two men wrestled over the gun, Burns saw Prickett shoot himself in the hand, and Prickett's co-defendant, Jaquavious Reed, whom Burns knew, take the gun from Prickett as Prickett ran away. Burns stated that after Prickett left, Reed approached the other man and shot him. The gunshot victim, who died at the scene, was later identified as Curry.

The medical examiner testified that in addition to the gunshot wound to Curry's knee, Curry had gunshot wounds to the chest and the shoulder. She stated that Curry died from a bullet that entered his shoulder and traveled through his body striking his lung, heart, and liver.

The State also presented evidence at trial showing that after his altercation with Curry, Prickett made a number of phone calls to Latasha Bigby, the mother of one of his children. In the days after Curry's death, Bigby informed police that Prickett told her that, as he ran away from the area, he said, "[T]hat n****r shot me.... [Y]’all kill that p***y n****r." Bigby also told police that Prickett said he and another man got into a scuffle because the man would not purchase marijuana from him. Prickett told her that he shot the other man in the leg and ran, but the man tackled him and they started scuffling, which is when Prickett shot himself. However, at trial, Bigby recanted her statements to police, explaining that everything she told them earlier was a lie because she was mad at Prickett at the time.

Zakkiah Robinson, Prickett's then-girlfriend, testified that at around 7:00 or 8:00 on the night of the altercation, Prickett returned to the apartment they shared, which was about ten minutes away from the crime scene. Prickett had been shot in the finger, but Robinson testified that they did not seek medical treatment for his injuries. Prickett told Robinson that he had gotten into a fight at the apartment complex, and the other man had been shot. Prickett said that he jumped up and took off running after he was shot. As Prickett was running, he said he heard more gunshots. Robinson and Prickett left their apartment that evening to get supplies to treat Prickett's injuries and stayed the night at Robinson's mother's house. Prickett was arrested there the next day and taken to the hospital for treatment of his hand.

Prickett presented two witnesses at trial. The first witness said that, on the day of the altercation, he saw Curry go to his truck and get something from under his seat, which the witness later saw was a gun. The witness saw Curry and Prickett "tussling," and when a shot was fired, the witness ran back into his apartment. The second witness was a former Fulton County Police officer who testified about a 1999 incident involving Curry, for which Curry was indicted on a number of charges, including aggravated assault on a police officer. Curry later pleaded guilty to one charge of obstruction of a law enforcement officer.

1. Prickett contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion for new trial because his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to stipulate that Prickett was a convicted felon, thereby exposing Prickett's criminal record to the jury and "tainting" his trial.

"To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant generally must show that counsel's performance was deficient and that the deficient performance resulted in prejudice to the defendant." Sawyer v. State , 308 Ga. 375, 381 (2), 839 S.E.2d 582 (2020) (citation and punctuation omitted). See also Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 687-96 (III), 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). In order to show that trial counsel's performance was deficient, a defendant must "overcome the strong presumption that counsel's performance fell within a wide range of reasonable professional conduct, and that counsel's decisions were made in the exercise of reasonable professional judgment." Marshall v. State , 297 Ga. 445, 448 (2), 774 S.E.2d 675 (2015) (citation and punctuation omitted). And to prove the required prejudice, a defendant must show a reasonable probability that, in the absence of counsel's deficient performance, the result of his trial would have been different. See Strickland , 466 U.S. at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (III), 104 S.Ct. 2052. "A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Id. The burden of establishing each of these two factors is "a heavy one." Brown v. State , 302 Ga. 454, 457-58 (2), 807 S.E.2d 369 (2017) (citation omitted). This Court need not consider "both components of the inquiry if the defendant makes an insufficient showing on one." Strickland , 466 U.S. at 697, 104 S.Ct. 2052 (IV), 104 S.Ct. 2052.

The indictment in this case charged Prickett with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon based on his 2007 conviction for possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute. At the hearing on the motion for new trial, Prickett's trial counsel had no specific recollection of why he did not pursue a stipulation of Prickett's status as a felon and/or a redaction of the indictment in Prickett's case. But he testified that, although any prior conviction is concerning for a defendant, in this case, he thought the facts were in Prickett's favor, and he still thought so at the time of the motion hearing. Although he could not recall the reasons for his decision in Prickett's case, trial counsel said that, generally, if he saw something that would help a client in not...