Semo v. State
| Citation | 358 Ga.App. 346,855 S.E.2d 379 |
| Decision Date | 08 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | A20A1840 |
| Parties | SEMO v. The STATE. |
| Court | United States Court of Appeals (Georgia) |
Rodney Samuel Zell, Atlanta, for Appellant.
David Scott McLaughlin, Atlanta, John Herbert Cranford Jr., Newnan, for Appellee.
Humphrey Semo drove his vehicle in the wrong direction on an interstate until he crashed head-on into a vehicle with three occupants. Two of the occupants died at the scene, and the third occupant sustained catastrophic injuries. Tried by a jury, Semo was found guilty as charged of two counts of first degree vehicular homicide,1 and one count each of serious injury by vehicle,2 reckless driving,3 and (because of a Scheduled I controlled substance discovered on his person on the night of the collision) felony drug possession.4 After merger of the reckless driving count,5 Semo was sentenced on the remaining four counts. Denied a new trial, Semo challenges in this appeal his convictions for first-degree vehicular homicide and serious injury by vehicle,6 arguing that he was deprived of effective assistance of trial counsel. We affirm.
At Semo's trial, the following evidence was adduced from the State's witnesses. On the night of May 21, 2015, the Troup County 911 Office began receiving a series of calls initially reporting that a vehicle was traveling southbound along a specified area of Interstate 185 North; soon thereafter, the calls reported that a crash had resulted. Recordings of those calls were played for the jury. Semo was the wrong-way driver. He had entered the expressway via an off ramp at Exit 46, then proceeded for several miles at 65 to 70 miles per hour until slamming his white Toyota Sequoia into a red Toyota Rav4. As was stipulated at the trial, the speed limit of Interstate 185 was 70 miles per hour.
The trial witnesses called to the stand by the State included several of those 911-callers, other individuals who had seen the crash, and various law enforcement and investigative personnel who were involved in the aftermath. In addition, the State called to the stand the sole occupant of the red Rav4 who survived his crash injuries.
One such 911-caller testified that she and her friend were traveling together on Interstate 185 North when they "nearly got hit" by a white SUV that was heading toward them. As she elaborated at trial, the oncoming vehicle was She testified that "it was really scary trying to go through that ordeal" and that she had been concerned that someone would get hurt, so she immediately called 911.
Another 911-caller testified that as he was driving on Interstate 185 North, he was using the right-most lane – "the slow one, not the hammer lane." At about mile marker 43, he recalled at trial, "[h]eadlights came at me and I swerved to get out of the way." The oncoming vehicle was heading southbound in his northbound lane. That area of Interstate 185, as the witness described at trial, was He immediately called 911.
A third caller recounted at trial that as he was driving from Columbus to Atlanta on Interstate 185, he discerned a vehicle approaching him in his same lane of travel. He moved into the right lane to avoid colliding with that vehicle; as soon as the oncoming vehicle passed him, he contacted 911 and reported the southbound motorist traveling on Interstate 185 North. That witness further recounted at trial being very familiar with that area of Interstate 185; and when he encountered the oncoming motorist between mile markers 43 and 42, as he testified, "I had no idea where he would have gotten on because I knew the next exit wasn't until a few more miles."
Another caller was driving a loaded tractor-trailer at the time. As he testified, advancing toward him. As he recounted, he began flashing his truck's headlights at the approaching vehicle, pressing the truck's city horn on the steering wheel, and blaring the 18-wheeler's air horn above the driver's door "because I didn't know what was going to happen at that point." The truck driver testified, "I just took a chance to get in the right lane, you know, because that gives me more of an out being that big and that heavy where I can either take off towards the woods, get on the shoulder, or whatever." As he recalled at trial, by "easing over to the right a little bit," he avoided what he was able to discern thereafter was a white SUV. He further testified that, moments later, he heard a loud crash behind him, then observed from a mirror
As that trial witness further detailed, the white vehicle had entered the interstate at Exit 46, then traveled for about four miles at approximately 65 to 70 miles per hour. All the while, the witness told from the stand, "I was honking the horn."
Other individuals had also seen the crash. One eyewitness was driving a work truck directly behind the red SUV. He testified that as he was traveling northbound on the interstate, he saw heading in his direction what he "thought ... was backup lights at first, but then ... realized it was headlights." He recounted, The individual described at trial that, upon impact, "[the red SUV] went up in the air"; that he veered his work vehicle "off to the right" of the road; and that the motorist behind him took a similar evasive action and drove further "off the road." The driver of the work truck and one of his passengers rushed back to the two SUVs that had collided to render aid.
The individual who had been a passenger in the work truck estimated at trial that they were traveling about 6- to 8-car-lengths behind the red SUV when it was struck. Upon the impact, the passenger testified, the "red car came over the front of our [work] truck, and we swerved out of the way and into the ditch." The passenger testified further that when their work truck finally came to a stop, he sprinted back to the wreckage to render aid.
The trial evidence showed that shortly thereafter, emergency responders began arriving, and they took over the scene. Ultimately, two occupants of the red SUV were pronounced dead at the scene by the Troup County Coroner who had meanwhile been summoned. The third occupant of the red SUV had survived his crash injuries, and he was airlifted to a hospital. Semo, who had been traveling alone in his vehicle, was transported by helicopter to a hospital in Atlanta.
A law enforcement officer assigned to a DUI task force serving the Atlanta metro-counties was dispatched to locate Semo at the Atlanta hospital upon his arrival. That officer found Semo in an emergency room, where medical personnel were cutting his clothing from his body. As that was progressing, a bag of green material was discovered in Semo's crotch area. The officer seized the bag as containing suspected contraband. The seized substance was later analyzed by a forensic chemist with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Qualified at trial as an expert in drug identification, the forensic chemist opined that the analyzed substance was 19.34 grams of a Schedule I drug commonly known as a synthetic cannabinoid.
Several other law enforcement officers testified regarding the collision scene, as well as about various aspects of the exit ramp used by Semo and the circumstances of Interstate 185 on the night in question. The first state trooper to arrive at the scene at about 10:05 p.m. testified that, based on his investigation, he ascertained that "a red Toyota Rav4 traveling northbound in the inside lane ... had been struck head on by a Toyota Sequoia near mile marker 40.9"; and that the latter vehicle, which was white in color, "had been traveling south in the northbound lanes." The trooper further ascertained that Semo, who was still being treated in an ambulance when the trooper arrived, had been the wrong-way driver.
The state trooper recounted at trial that the weather conditions on that night were clear and without fog, and that the pavement was dry. He testified that along that stretch of Interstate 185, the grassy median between the two southbound lanes and the two northbound lanes was unobstructed, thus allowing for a view of the traffic flow from one side to the other.
The trooper detailed at trial the extensive signage set out all along the off ramp at Exit 46 (which Semo had used) to avert a driver from using that ramp to enter the expressway: e.g., a "Do Not Enter / Wrong Way" reflective sign posted where the off ramp joined the cross street so as to face a potential wrong-way driver; white stop bars painted all across the payment of the off ramp where it joined the cross street; a second "Do Not Enter / Wrong Way" reflective sign posted some distance along the ramp so as to face a wrong-way driver; and two "One Way" signs – one posted on either side of the ramp....
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