Sillah v. State
| Decision Date | 07 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | S22A0939,S22A1175 |
| Parties | SILLAH v. THE STATE. MURRAY v. THE STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
After a joint trial, Darnell Sillah and Andrew Murray were convicted of malice murder for the shooting death of Paul Sampleton Jr., as well as various other crimes.[1] On appeal, Sillah who was a juvenile when Sampleton was killed, argues that (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for criminal gang activity; (2) the trial court erred by admitting his custodial statement; (3) the trial court erred by denying his motion to sever; (4) the trial court failed to consider Sillah's "youth and attendant characteristics" before sentencing him to life in prison without the possibility of parole ("LWOP"); (5) this sentence violated the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution; and (6) the trial court committed other sentencing errors. We agree with Sillah that the trial court should have merged his convictions for conspiracy to commit armed robbery and conspiracy to commit burglary, so we vacate those convictions. We otherwise affirm.
Murray proceeding pro se on appeal, appears to argue that the trial court failed to consider the merits of his motion for new trial and that the State failed to present evidence of guilt at the motion for new trial hearing. The record belies Murray's first claim, and the State had no burden of proof at the hearing, negating the second claim. So we affirm.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the trial evidence showed the following. Sillah, known as "Young," was a member and leader of the Young Wavy Goons (YWG), a gang affiliated with the Bloods gang and whose members were mostly high school students. The gang committed several robberies, burglaries, and car thefts.
In September 2012, Sillah and fellow YWG member Romaine Stewart broke into the house of John Dugas, whose son attended high school with Sillah and Stewart. Sillah and Stewart stole electronics and several firearms from Dugas, including a .45-caliber Sig Sauer.
In December 2012, Sillah was 15 years old and was living with his grandmother and co-defendants Andrew Murray, who is his uncle, and Tavaughn Saylor, who had relocated to Georgia from New York with Murray. Murray was a gang member affiliated with the Bloods street gang. In late November or early December, Sillah and fellow YWG gang members Stewart and Achiel Morgan discussed robbing Sampleton, a high school classmate, and taking shoes from him. Sampleton had a collection of high-priced sneakers that he would sometimes trade or sell. Murray sent Sillah text messages in mid-December asking "what time son got off the bus?" and "Do son have football practice?" Sampleton was on his high school football team.
On December 17, Stewart, Morgan, and Sillah were heading home on the school bus when they decided to carry out their plan to rob Sampleton after Stewart gave Sampleton a haircut. After Stewart finished cutting Sampleton's hair, he and Sampleton walked to Sampleton's house so that Stewart could get paid. As they got close to Sampleton's neighborhood, Sillah, who had called Stewart repeatedly for updates, told Stewart, "you're supposed to let him walk by hisself [sic] .... you're messing up the move, you're messing it up[.]" Meanwhile, Murray's car drove by. Stewart, Sillah, and Morgan did not carry out the robbery that day.
Two days later, Sampleton had an early release from school. Sampleton's mother began calling her son at home around 11:45 a.m. to check on him, but when he did not answer after numerous calls, she asked his father to go to her residence in Grayson to check on Sampleton. Sampleton's father, who arrived at the house around 1:45 p.m., found Sampleton face-down on the kitchen floor, with duct tape over his mouth and his hands bound behind his back. Sampleton was dead and had been shot three times in the head with a .45-caliber gun, possibly a Sig Sauer. A mail carrier in Sampleton's area testified that she heard three gunshots between 12:45 p.m. and 1:15 p.m.
Sampleton was shoeless, the house and garage had been ransacked, and "Home Rep 5CK" was written on a bathroom mirror. A gang expert testified that that "Rep 5" signified that the perpetrator was representing "People Nation," which was comprised of several gangs including the Bloods gang, and that "CK" stood for "Crip Killer." Electronics, Sampleton's Billionaire Boys Club sweatshirt, several pairs of his Nike shoes, other clothing, and a bottle of liquor were missing.
Around 2:30 p.m. on the day of Sampleton's death someone fired a gun at Stevo Hrnjak while he was driving south on Interstate 85. Hrnjak stated that he and a silver BMW had been traveling for some time before they both got off at the same exit in Norcross, and when he tried to pass the BMW following a turn, a man in the BMW pulled out a gun and fired two shots at him. Hrnjack said there were at least two men riding in the front of the car but could not tell if there was a passenger in the rear because of the vehicle's dark-tinted windows. After speaking to police, Hrnjak went searching for the silver BMW, finding it at an apartment complex where Anthony English lived.
English frequently bought goods from Murray and re-sold them. English testified that Murray, Sillah, and a man he did not recognize came to his apartment on December 19. They arrived in a silver BMW and Sillah and Murray were carrying handguns. Murray asked if English could sell some items for him. English sold many of the items that were stolen from the Sampleton residence, but he kept the Billionaire Boys Club sweatshirt for himself. Sillah also sold some of the stolen electronics himself and tried to sell a .45-caliber gun.
The defendants were ultimately arrested. At the time of their arrest, Sillah and Saylor were in a silver BMW that matched the description given by Hrnjak. Sillah was interviewed by the police and a recording of the interview was played at trial. He admitted that he and Stewart discussed robbing Sampleton, but denied participating in the crime. Sillah claimed that on the day of Sampleton's murder, Murray and Saylor picked him up from school and took him back to his neighborhood in a silver BMW. Sillah said he got out of the car just outside his neighborhood and went to meet "Samantha," but Sillah refused to provide any other identifying information because he claimed "Samantha" would allege that he raped her. He said the two of them traveled in her car, which he could not describe other than as "brown," to a park, where he smoked marijuana and they had sex. Cell phone records contradicted Sillah's account of where he claimed to have been.
Timothy Johnson, who was an inmate with Sillah, testified at trial that Sillah admitted to participating in Sampleton's killing. Sillah told Johnson that he, Murray, and Saylor entered Sampleton's home, Saylor tied up Sampleton, and Murray shot Sampleton. Sillah said that he went "back and forth from searching the home to checking the front of the home, being more of a lookout." Sillah told Johnson that Murray "didn't have to shoot [Sampleton] in the head." Sillah asked Johnson whether he could still be found guilty of murder even if it could not be proven that he was in Sampleton's house.
1. Sillah argues that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for criminal street gang activity. We disagree.
When evaluating the sufficiency of evidence, the proper standard of review is whether a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 S.Ct 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560) (1979). We do not resolve conflicts in the evidence or determine the credibility of witnesses; instead, we view the evidence in the "light most favorable to the verdict, with deference to the jury's assessment of the weight and credibility of the evidence." Hayes v. State, 292 Ga. 506, 506 (739 S.E.2d 313) (2013) (citation and punctuation omitted). The jury's resolution of these issues "adversely to the defendant does not render the evidence insufficient." Graham v. State, 301 Ga. 675, 677 (1) (804 S.E.2d 113) (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted).
Sillah was charged with violating the Street Gang Act on the basis that, while associated with a criminal street gang, he participated in criminal gang activity through the commission of at least one of several crimes, including murder, felony murder, armed robbery, and burglary. To convict Sillah, the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the existence of a "criminal street gang," that Sillah was associated with the gang, that he committed one of the offenses listed in OCGA § 16-15-3 (1), and that the commission of the predicate offense was intended to further the interests of the gang. See McGruder v. State, 303 Ga. 588, 591-592 (II) (814 S.E.2d 293) (2018). A "criminal street gang" is defined as "any organization, association, or group of three or more persons associated in fact, whether formal or informal, which engages in criminal street gang activity[.]" OCGA § 16-15-3 (3).
Sillah does not argue that the evidence was insufficient to show that he committed one of the enumerated offenses. Nor does he argue that the evidence failed to show the existence of a criminal street gang or that he was associated with it. Indeed, the evidence set forth above was sufficient to establish these elements. Instead, Sillah argues that the evidence was insufficient to show that the predicate acts furthered the interest of a particular gang when the evidence did not show that the defendants were in the same gang or that the defendants had a common interest.
A criminal street gang expert...
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