Rice v. State

• Citation: 292 Ga. 191,733 S.E.2d 755
• Decision Date: 29 October 2012
• Docket Number: No. S12P1309.,S12P1309.
• Parties: RICE v. The STATE.
• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia

292 Ga. 191

733 S.E.2d 755

RICE

v.The STATE.

No. S12P1309.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Oct. 29, 2012.

Ashleigh Bartkus Merchant, The Merchant Law Firm, P.C., Marietta, Edwin J. Wilson, Snellville, for appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Mary Beth Westmoreland, Deputy Atty. Gen., Samuel S. Olens, Atty. Gen., Richard Tangum, Asst. Atty. Gen., Department of Law, John Richard Edwards, Anna Green Cross, Asst. Dist. Attys., Patrick H. Head, Dist. Atty., Office of the District Attorney, for appellee.

Brian Kammer, Georgia Resource Center, Richard A. Malone, Prosecuting Attorney's Counsel, Atlanta, for other party.

BENHAM, Justice.

A jury convicted Lawrence Rice of murdering Connie Mincher and her 14–year–old son, Ethan Mincher, and of burglary ¹ The jury found multiple statutory aggravating circumstances related to each of the murders and recommended a death sentence for each of the murders, which the trial court imposed. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the State, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. Lawrence Rice met Trevor Mincher in or around 1990, when Rice began working at a video production company under Mr. Mincher's supervision. Shortly afterward, another man was hired at the company, and Rice resigned in anger after he came to believe that this other man was being paid more than he was. After resigning, Rice began a 13–year course of harassing Mr. Mincher and his wife, beginning with his standing around at a convenience store near Mr. Mincher's work and then repeatedly making unwanted telephone calls. Rice also was the likely source of a Christmas card sent to Mr. Mincher that had been altered to depict an angel with a blackened eye and blood dripping from its wings, that contained feathers and Carribean coins, and that stated that the “curse of Akbar” had been placed on Mr. Mincher and his family. Rice's motive and plan for the crimes were most clearly demonstrated in a lengthy manuscript that he had written, titled “CultureShock,” in which he detailed his belief that Mr. Mincher had been speaking ill of him within the video production industry and thus preventing him from finding employment, his evolving financial difficulties, and his plan to murder Mr. Mincher's family with a hatchet if his situation did not improve.

In the days leading up to the murders, several witnesses observed Rice in the Minchers' neighborhood sitting in his damaged gold Mercedes and walking around. On the day of the murders, April 17, 2003, several neighbors and a school bus driver described seeing Rice's automobile parked in the Minchers' driveway around the time of the murders, Rice getting something out of the trunk of his automobile and going into the Minchers' house, Ethan Mincher arriving from school and entering the house, and Rice leaving the house hurriedly in his automobile. Trevor and Connie Mincher's daughter arrived home from school shortly after Rice was seen fleeing the scene. She observed an automobile-sized dry spot on the driveway, which, because there was drizzling rain that day, showed that Rice had only recently departed. Inside the house, Connie Mincher was lying face down on a bed with a rug over her head and was already dead. Ethan Mincher was lying face down in a large pool of blood in the kitchen, but he was still alive. Ethan Mincher died shortly afterward.

When investigators told Mr. Mincher about the gold Mercedes that had been seen at the Minchers' house, Mr. Mincher told them about Rice. Investigators met up with Rice, and he admitted that he had been at the Minchers' house around the time of the murders. However, Rice claimed that he had been at the Minchers' house to receive money from Connie Mincher, that he had gone into the house when Ethan Mincher arrived, that a man named “Jason” had arrived later, and that he had left because “Jason” was not “cordial” to him. Contrary to Rice's account, a number of witnesses testified at trial that the Minchers had never mentioned anything about lending money to Rice or anything about someone named “Jason.” A search of Rice's automobile revealed a map with the Minchers' neighborhood circled and a handgun containing one bullet. Mr. Mincher's video-recorded deposition testimony, which was seen by the jury, confirmed other evidence of Rice's motive, Rice's history of harassing and threatening Mr. Mincher and his wife, and the fact that the Minchers did not know someone named “Jason.”

A paramedic testified that Ethan Mincher had duct tape over his mouth and in his hair when unsuccessful medical treatment on him was begun, and the medical examiner testified that Connie Mincher had duct tape over her mouth and around her head and neck. The medical examiner further testified as follows. Connie Mincher's hands had been bound behind her back, and Ethan Mincher had a set of handcuffs attached to one of his wrists. Connie Mincher had a black eye, a bruise on her upper back, fractured ribs, and petechial hemorrhages in her eyes indicative of her having been asphyxiated by the duct tape that was wrapped around her neck. She had suffered at least 5 and perhaps 11 or more blows to her head with an instrument or instruments consistent with the sharp and blunt ends of a hatchet, and her skull was fractured and depressed into her brain. Ethan Mincher's body showed signs of having been in a struggle, including bruises to his eye, cheek, lips, chin, scalp, and upper chest and abrasions to his arm and neck. Ethan Mincher's most serious wounds, like Connie Mincher's, were consistent with the murder weapon's having been a hatchet. He had suffered at least two blunt force blows to his back, which broke his ribs and left a rectangular abrasion. He had also suffered multiple blunt force blows to his skull, which was fractured and depressed into his brain.

Upon our review of the record, we conclude that the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Rice guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on all counts. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also U.A.P. IV(B)(2) (providing that, in all death penalty cases, this Court will determine whether the verdicts are supported by the evidence).

Competency Trial Issues

2. Because it had concerns about Rice's mental state, the trial court ordered a jury trial on the question of Rice's competence to stand trial. Later, Rice entered a special plea of incompetence. See OCGA § 17–7–130(b). We find no merit to Rice's claims that his competency trial was defective.

(a) Prior to the competency trial, defense counsel filed a pleading in which counsel objected to the trial court's conducting a competency trial and in which counsel argued that Rice had shown no signs of incompetence. Rice argues on appeal that the trial court erred by overruling his motion in limine concerning the State's intent to use the pleading as evidence at the competency trial. The trial court was correct in ruling that the pleading was admissible as a statement in judicio. See OCGA § 24–3–30 (“Without offering the same in evidence, either party may avail himself of allegations or admissions made in the pleadings of the other.”). Because we conclude that the pleading was admissible, we need not address the extent to which Rice might have waived his objection to the State's use of the pleading when, after the State had questioned the defense expert about the contents of the pleading and testimony favorable to Rice was given by the expert in response, Rice stated that he had no objection to the introduction of the written pleading itself.

(b) Rice was evaluated by a court-appointed expert, who found him to be competent at the time of the evaluation. After this court-appointed expert left his employment with the Department of Human Resources and entered private practice, the trial court denied Rice's request for funds to hire him as a defense expert for further evaluation of Rice because of the trial court's concern about a conflict of interest. However, the trial court authorized funds for a new expert to serve as a defense expert. This new expert found Rice to be incompetent, because she found that Rice's paranoia interfered with his ability to assist his attorneys. Rice argues that the trial court erred by allowing the State to argue that the defense had chosen to hire this new expert because the defense wanted a psychiatric evaluation different from the last one. However, Rice has failed to cite to anywhere in the record where he objected to this statement or the State's argument concerning the statement, which appears to have been elicited first from the defense expert under direct examination by Rice and which appears to have been fully explained through additional questioning about how the defense expert had been hired. Thus, this issue, which could not have affected the trial jury's selection of a death sentence later in Rice's criminal trial, is waived. See Gissendaner v. State, 272 Ga. 704(10)(b), 532 S.E.2d 677 (2000) (setting forth the waiver rule applied in death penalty cases).

Jury Selection Issues

3. Rice argues that the trial court erred by refusing to excuse certain jurors. Because a defendant is entitled to a full panel of qualified jurors at the beginning of peremptory strikes, “the erroneous qualifying of a single juror for the panel from which the jury was struck” would require reversal. Lance v. State, 275 Ga. 11(8), 560 S.E.2d 663 (2002). A juror who favors the death penalty must be excused for cause if those views “would prevent or substantially impair the performance of the juror's duties as a juror in accordance with the instructions given the juror and the oath taken by the juror.” Id. at 15, 560 S.E.2d 663 (citing Greene v. State, 268 Ga. 47, 48, 485 S.E.2d 741 (1997)). We also apply this same standard where a juror is challenged based on his or her willingness to consider life with...