Robbins v. State

• Decision Date: 31 October 2016
• Docket Number: S16A1342
• Citation: 300 Ga. 387,793 S.E.2d 62
• Parties: ROBBINS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

300 Ga. 387

793 S.E.2d 62

ROBBINS

v.The STATE.

S16A1342

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: October 31, 2016

Amy Lee Ihrig, Office of the Public Defender, Eastern Judicial Circuit, P.O. Box 9176, Savannah, Georgia 31412, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Senior A.A.G., Paula Khristian Smith, Senior A.A.G., Samuel S. Olens, A.G., Aimee F. Sobhani, Department of Law, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Margaret Ellen Heap, D.A., Office of the District Attorney Eastern Judicial Circuit, P.O. Box 2309, Savannah, Georgia 31402, Lyndsey Hurst Rudder, A.D.A., Office of the District Attorney Eastern Judicial Circuit, 133 Montgomery Street Suite 600, Savannah, Georgia 31401, for Appellee.

MELTON, Justice.

Following a jury trial, Robert Robbins was found guilty of felony murder, aggravated assault, and aggravated battery in connection with the beating death of his wife, Susan Robbins.¹ On appeal, Robbins contends that the trial court erred in allowing certain statements of the deceased victim to be admitted into evidence at trial and that his trial counsel was ineffective. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the evidence presented at trial revealed that, on the night of February 7, 2011, after drinking a box of wine and a bottle of peppermint schnapps, and taking pain pills, Robbins became enraged about being unable to find his lighter and severely beat his wife, Susan, for an extended period of time with a plank of wood, breaking her nose; fracturing her ribs and wrist; breaking her femur; and causing a collapsed lung, bilateral subdural hematomas, and a subarachnoid brain bleed. At some point during the repeated beatings, Robbins' son saw Robbins twist Susan's arm and choke her while she was nearly unconscious on the ground.²

After receiving a call from relatives about the domestic dispute between Robbins and Susan the next morning, Susan's niece, Elizabeth Grimes, went to Susan's RV and found Susan sitting on a couch with a broken and bloody nose. Susan was covered in dried blood and was incoherent, which led Grimes to believe that Susan should be taken to the hospital. While Robbins was still sleeping somewhere in the RV, Susan told Grimes about the beating that she had suffered at the hands of her husband, claiming that Robbins had been drinking boxed wine and peppermint schnapps and taking pain pills all night; that Robbins became angry when he could not find his lighter and then began beating Susan in frustration; and that Robbins continued to beat her intermittently all night. Susan also pointed out to Grimes the plank of wood that Robbins had used to beat her. Susan initially did not want to go to the hospital, but Grimes eventually convinced Susan to go. Robbins' son had to physically help Susan to make it to Grimes' car.

At the hospital, Grimes told police the details about the beating that Susan had told her that morning. However, as the police investigation progressed, Grimes became uncooperative and refused to give a written statement to police. At trial, Grimes consistently denied telling police anything about the beating and instead testified that Susan had told her that her injuries had resulted from a fall from her trailer. Grimes further denied that she had made any of the statements about the beating to the police that Susan had allegedly told her the morning after the beating. However, at trial, a police detective and Susan's daughter testified about all of the statements that Grimes had told to them about the beating that had been conveyed to her by Susan.

While Susan was at the hospital, her condition eventually worsened and she was placed on a ventilator to help her breathe. Susan's doctor informed her that she would need to undergo surgery in order to be able to breathe on her own, and Susan initially agreed to the surgery, but she later changed her mind on the day of the scheduled surgery and decided not to have the surgery. Susan's condition deteriorated, and, after twenty-five days in the hospital, Susan's daughter placed her in hospice care on March 4, 2011. The next day, Susan died, succumbing to the injuries that she had suffered as a result of the severe beating that she had received at the hands of Robbins throughout the night on February 7.

When interviewed by police about the night of the alleged beating, Robbins said that he did not know what happened, but he apologized and admitted that he was with Susan at the RV on the night that she suffered her injuries, that he had been angry and frustrated with his wife, and that he had "been under too much stress... until [he] broke down."

The evidence was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find Robbins guilty of all of the crimes of which he was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Robbins contends that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence the statements that Susan allegedly made to Grimes on the morning after the beating as either exceptions to the rule against hearsay, see OCGA §§ 24–8–803 (1) (present sense impressions)³ and 24–8–803 (2) (excited utterances),⁴ or under OCGA § 24–8–801 (d) (1),⁵ to impeach Grimes' trial testimony.⁶ We disagree.

Pretermitting the question whether Susan's prior statements to Grimes could be admitted into evidence through Grimes' testimony as present sense impressions pursuant to OCGA § 24–8–803 (1), we find that such statements could be properly admitted into evidence as excited utterances under OCGA § 24–8–803 (2). Again, "[a] statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition " may be admitted into evidence under the excited utterance exception to the rule against hearsay. In this regard:

[w]hile the declarant must still be under the stress or excitement that the startling event caused, the excited utterance need not be made contemporaneously to the startling event. It is the totality of the circumstances, not simply the length of time that has passed between the event and the statement, that determines whether a hearsay statement was an excited utterance. See United States v. Cruz, 156 F.3d 22, 30 (1st Cir. 1998) (finding a statement was an excited utterance when it was made four hours after the startling event because it is likely that the victim continued to suffer trauma because she was unable to escape the location where the assault occurred); United States v. Scarpa, 913 F.2d 993, 1016–17 (2d Cir. 1990) (finding a statement was an excited utterance when it was made five or six hours after the event where the record demonstrated that the declarant was still under stress at the time he made the statement); Gross v. Greer, 773 F.2d 116, 119–20 (7th Cir. 1985) (finding that the district court properly admitted a statement made twelve hours after the startling event).

United States v. Belfast, 611 F.3d 783, 817–818 (VI) (A) (11th Cir. 2010).

Here, the evidence reveals that Grimes arrived at Susan's RV in the morning after Susan had possibly been subjected to a beating that took place throughout the entire night, and Susan was still speaking incoherently from the recent beating that had broken her nose and caused her several other extensive injuries. While the beating itself was not still actively occurring at that moment, Susan was still in the RV where the beating had just taken place and she did not know if the beatings might begin again. We find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's conclusion that, under the totality of the circumstances, Susan was still suffering under the stress of the all-night beating such that her statements to Grimes were admissible under the excited utterance exception to the rule against hearsay. See id.

However, because Grimes testified at trial that Susan had only told her that she had received her injuries from falling from her RV, this does not answer the question whether Susan's alleged statements to Grimes about the beating could be properly introduced at trial through the testimony of the investigating police officer and the testimony of Susan's daughter. In this regard, the potential hearsay within hearsay as conveyed through the testimony of the police officer and Susan's daughter must be independently evaluated for admissibility. See OCGA § 24–8–805 ("Hearsay included within hearsay shall not be excluded under the hearsay rule if each part of the combined statements conforms with an exception to the hearsay rule"). In this connection, the statements that Grimes made to police and Susan's daughter independently of anything that Susan allegedly told to her would fall within an exception to the rule against hearsay. See OCGA §§ 24–8–801 (c) (" ‘Hearsay’ means a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted") and (d) (1) (A) ("An out-of-court statement shall not be hearsay if the declarant testifies at the trial or hearing, is subject to cross-examination concerning the statement, and the statement is admissible as a prior inconsistent statement or a prior consistent statement under Code Section 24–6–613 or is otherwise admissible"). Further, as stated previously, the statements made by Susan to Grimes about the possible beating would be properly admissible under the excited utterances exception to the rule against hearsay. OCGA § 24–8–803 (2).

Because Susan's prior statements to Grimes about the beating fell within an exception to the rule against hearsay, these statements could be used as substantive evidence and to impeach Grimes' testimony at trial in which she denied that Susan ever told her about the beating. Gibbons v. State, 248 Ga. 858, 862, 286 S.E.2d 717 (1982) ("[A] prior inconsistent statement of a witness who takes the stand and is subject to cross-examination is admissible as...