Spivey v. State

• Decision Date: 06 September 1979
• Docket Number: No. 34870,34870
• Citation: 244 Ga. 114,259 S.E.2d 60
• Parties: SPIVEY v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

Page 60

259 S.E.2d 60

244 Ga. 114

SPIVEY v. The STATE.

No. 34870.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Submitted May 4, 1979.

Decided Sept. 6, 1979.

R. Robider Markwalter, C. R. Cook, Macon, for appellant.

W. Donald Thompson, Dist. Atty., Willis B. Sparks, III, Asst. Dist. Atty., Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., William B. Hill, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

JORDAN, Justice.

Ronald Keith Spivey was convicted for armed robbery and the murder of Charles McCook. He was sentenced to 20 years for armed robbery and life imprisonment for murder. His motion for new trial was overruled and he appeals.

The state's evidence as related by eyewitnesses and the appellant's testimony shows that appellant became involved in an argument with the victim over a pool game bet. The victim picked up a triangular pool rack and started toward the appellant, at which time appellant pulled his pistol and saying "you are going to die," shot the victim in the chest. After he fell to the floor, the appellant shot him again in the back, death resulting from the first shot. Appellant then shot a bystander who had started toward a telephone. He then reached in the death victim's shirt pocket and took a $20 bill which he claimed was owed to him on the bet.

The appellant then went to the nearby Zodiac lounge, announced that he had just killed three people, and asked the whereabouts of the tall blonde bartender. Upon being told that she was not working that night he stated that she should be thankful because he came in "to blow her brains out." He then ordered the bartender to give him the money in the register. When she hesitated, he reached in his coat pocket and the bartender after hearing "a click which sounded like the hammer of a gun" took some $150 from the register and placed it on the bar. After taking the money, appellant told the bartender to take the house phone off the hook and then walked over and pumped six shots into the pay phone.

Appellant testified that he left Macon and went to Columbus where he robbed a bar and shot two men. As a result of the escapade in Columbus, he was convicted and sentenced to death for murder, two life sentences for armed robbery, twenty years for kidnapping, and two 10 year sentences for aggravated assault. These convictions and sentences, including the death penalty, were affirmed by this court in Spivey v. State, 241 Ga. 477, 246 S.E.2d 288 (1978).

1. Appellant's first enumeration asserts error of the trial court in failing to grant his motion for directed verdict as to the count of armed robbery on the ground that to do so "was against the weight of the evidence and without evidence to support it."

Likewise, his second enumeration asserts that the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion for directed verdict as to the count of murder on the ground that to do so was "contrary to the evidence and without evidence to support."

The record shows that the state's evidence was overwhelming as to both counts, and whether measured by its weight or its sufficiency, was more than necessary to support a finding by a rational trier of fact that the appellant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Hicks v. State, 232 Ga. 393, 403, 207 S.E.2d 30 (1974) and Peacock v. State, 231 Ga. 644(1), 203 S.E.2d 533 (1974). These two enumerations are without merit.

2. Appellant's third enumeration contends that the trial court erred " in failing to grant appellant's motion for new trial upon discovery that the state's main rebuttal witness had been deliberately uncooperative with defense counsel and in doing so had denied appellant his right to a fair trial."

The defense of insanity was raised at trial by the appellant and a considerable portion of the testimony concerned the mental and...