State v. Springer

• Decision Date: 29 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. S14G1539.,S14G1539.
• Citation: 297 Ga. 376,774 S.E.2d 106
• Parties: The STATE v. SPRINGER.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

297 Ga. 376

774 S.E.2d 106

The STATE

v.SPRINGER.

No. S14G1539.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

June 29, 2015.

Anne Cobb Allen, Asst. Dist. Atty., Peter J. Skandalakis, Dist. Atty., for appellant.

Maryellen Simmons, Carrollton, Margaret Elizabeth Flynt, Atlanta, for appellee.

Leonora Grant, Asst. Dist. Atty., Robert D. James, Jr., Dist. Atty., Gary Drew Bergman, Morrow, amici curiae.

Opinion

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

We granted the State's petition for writ of certiorari to review the Court of Appeals' decision reversing appellee Roderick Springer's convictions for aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter based on reckless conduct on the ground that these verdicts are mutually exclusive. See Springer v. State, 328 Ga.App. 654, 762 S.E.2d 433 (2014). After reviewing the record and pertinent case law, we hold that under the facts of this case, the jury's guilty verdicts are not mutually exclusive and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. In doing so, we overrule our decision in Jackson v. State, 276 Ga. 408, 577 S.E.2d 570 (2003).

The State presented evidence at trial demonstrating that Springer and a co-defendant exchanged multiple gunshots in a public parking lot, several of which struck the victim, an innocent bystander, causing the victim's death. Springer was indicted on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. At Springer's request, in addition to instructing the jury on the offenses set out in the indictment, the trial court also charged the jury on the lesser included offense of involuntary manslaughter predicated on the misdemeanors of reckless conduct and simple assault. See OCGA § 16–5–3(a) (involuntary manslaughter unlawful act); OCGA § 16–5–20 (simple assault); OCGA § 16–5–60(b) (reckless conduct). The jury ultimately found Springer guilty of involuntary manslaughter based on reckless conduct, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of 10 and 20 years imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault, respectively, and a consecutive five-year term of imprisonment on the firearm count.

Springer appealed to the Court of Appeals, arguing, in part, that his involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault convictions were prohibited under Jackson, supra, a case in which a majority of this Court held that convictions for felony murder predicated on aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter based on reckless conduct are mutually exclusive and, therefore, must be reversed, “because they represent a positive but illogical finding by the jury that [the defendant] acted with both criminal intent and criminal negligence.” Jackson, supra, 276 Ga. at 411, 577 S.E.2d 570. Relying on Jackson, the Court of Appeals vacated Springer's involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault convictions, finding the jury's verdicts are mutually exclusive because there was a reasonable probability that the jury concluded that Springer acted both with and without an intent to harm the victim when he discharged his gun in the parking lot. See Springer, supra, 328 Ga.App. at 657, 762 S.E.2d 433.

1. The State urges us to reconsider our holding in Jackson, arguing that verdicts of guilt for the greater offense of aggravated assault and the lesser included offense of reckless conduct are not mutually exclusive. It points out that under Georgia law, involuntary manslaughter and reckless conduct are both lesser included offenses of felony murder, and reckless conduct is also a lesser included offense of aggravated assault by attempting to injure. See Reinhardt v. State, 263 Ga. 113, 113–114(2), 428 S.E.2d 333 (1993), overruled on other grounds, Vergara v. State, 283 Ga. 175, 177, 657 S.E.2d 863 (2008) ; Shaw v. State, 238 Ga.App. 757, 758–759, 519 S.E.2d 486 (1999). See also OCGA § 16–1–6 (defining included crime). It argues, therefore, that because the offense of reckless conduct is included in the charged crime of felony murder based on aggravated assault, it is illogical to conclude that a conviction for the lesser offense and a conviction of the greater offense are mutually exclusive. Springer takes the position that Jackson was not wrongly decided but asks this Court to hold that a defendant has the discretion to accept mutually exclusive verdicts when it is in his or her interest to do so.

As a general rule, a guilty verdict cannot be challenged on the ground that the jury's verdict of guilt on one count of an indictment is inconsistent with an acquittal on another count. See United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 68–69, 105 S.Ct. 471, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984) ; Dumas v. State, 266 Ga. 797, 799, 471 S.E.2d 508 (1996). Such verdicts are deemed constitutionally tolerable because they may reflect an exercise of lenity by the jury that is not necessarily grounded in its view of the evidence. See Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 393, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932), quoting Steckler v. United States, 7 F.2d 59, 60 (2d Cir.1925) (“The most that can be said in such cases is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant's guilt. We interpret the acquittal as no more than their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity”); Dumas, supra, 266 Ga. at 799(2), 471 S.E.2d 508 (abolition of inconsistent verdict rule is consistent “with the principle that it is not generally within the trial court's power to make inquiries into the jury's deliberations, or to speculate about the reasons for any inconsistency between guilty and not guilty verdicts.”).

In Powell, supra, 469 U.S. at 69 n. 8, 105 S.Ct. 471, the Supreme Court noted that nothing in that opinion was “intended to decide the proper resolution of a situation where a defendant is convicted of two crimes, where a guilty verdict on one count logically excludes a finding of guilt on the other.” This Court addressed the issue left undecided in Powell in Dumas, supra, 266 Ga. at 800, 471 S.E.2d 508. In that case, the jury initially found the defendant guilty of malice murder, vehicular homicide, and driving under the influence. The trial court informed the jury it had rendered inconsistent verdicts and sent jurors back for further deliberations. The jury later returned verdicts finding Dumas guilty of malice murder and driving under the influence. On appeal, Dumas argued that the trial court was obligated to accept the jury's first verdicts, and because the essential elements of malice murder and vehicular homicide could not be reconciled, the trial court was only authorized to convict him of the lesser offense of vehicular homicide. Id. at 798, 471 S.E.2d 508. We affirmed, agreeing both that verdicts are mutually exclusive where it is “legally and logically impossible to convict [the accused] of both counts,” and that the first verdicts could not be accepted because the guilty verdicts for malice murder, an offense requiring a showing of malice, and vehicular homicide, requiring a showing of the absence of malice aforethought and intent, were mutually exclusive. Id. at 800, 471 S.E.2d 508.

We also held that where verdicts are mutually exclusive, reversal of both verdicts is required because it would be “insufficient for an appellate court merely to set aside the lesser verdict, because to do so is to speculate about what the jury might have done if properly instructed, and to usurp the functions of both the jury and trial court.”¹ Id. Thus, we determined in Dumas that at least under state law, two or more legally and logically irreconcilable guilty verdicts cannot stand.² See also Masoner v. Thurman,

996 F.2d 1003, 1005 (9th Cir.1993) (holding that Powell is not applicable where jury convicts defendant of multiple charges that are logically inconsistent); United States v. Gross, 961 F.2d 1097, 1106 (3d Cir.1992) (logically incompatible guilty verdicts cannot stand).

Seven years later, in Jackson, this Court was called upon to consider for the first time whether convictions for felony murder predicated upon aggravated assault and involuntary manslaughter predicated upon reckless conduct are mutually exclusive. Our inquiry required us to carefully scrutinize the offenses alleged in the indictment as underlying the charges and determine whether the jury, in finding the defendant guilty of both counts, “necessarily reached two positive findings of fact that cannot logically mutually exist.” Jackson, supra, 276 Ga. at 410, 577 S.E.2d 570 (punctuation and citation omitted). In doing so, we recognized that felony murder requires a defendant to possess the criminal intent to commit the underlying felony and that where the felony murder charged is based on an assault, in that case aggravated to felony status by use of a deadly weapon, there are two ways to commit the assault: (1) by attempting to “commit a violent injury to the person of another,” OCGA § 16–5–20(a)(1), or (2) by committing “an act which places another in reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury.” OCGA § 16–5–20(a)(2). Citing Dunagan v. State, 269 Ga. 590, 502 S.E.2d 726 (1998), we further acknowledged that an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon based on an assault under OCGA § 16–5–20(a)(1) cannot be committed by criminal negligence. Jackson, supra, 276 Ga. at 411, 577 S.E.2d 570. Reckless conduct, in contrast, is “ ‘an act of criminal negligence, rather than an intentional act, that causes bodily harm or endangers the bodily safety of another.’ ” Id. (citation omitted). Given the different elements of these two offenses and our holding in Dunagan that a verdict of guilty as to aggravated assault based on OCGA § 16–5–20(a)(1) requires a finding of intent, we held that the element of intent required to prove an assault under subsection (a)(1) “pre...