Teele v. State

• Decision Date: 14 December 2012
• Docket Number: No. A12A1649.,A12A1649.
• Citation: 319 Ga.App. 448,738 S.E.2d 277
• Parties: TEELE v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

319 Ga.App. 448

738 S.E.2d 277

TEELE

v.The STATE.

No. A12A1649.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

Dec. 14, 2012.

G. Richard Stepp, for Appellant.

Daniel J. Porter and Charles Paul Efstration III, for Appellee.

BOGGS, Judge.

A jury found Anjoure Charnel Teele guilty of armed robbery. Following the denial of her motion for new trial, Teele appeals, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. She also contends that the trial court erred by admitting her statement to the police and by excluding testimony regarding her co-defendant's prior sworn statement. For the following reasons, we affirm.

Construed in favor of the verdict, the record shows that on January 6, 2011, a man, later identified as Michael Anthony Williams, approached the victim at a gas station and inquired about purchasing some jewelry from him. The victim did not have the items with him, so he showed Williams a photograph of them and gave him his phone number. That night, Williams called the victim, and they arranged to meet at an intersection in the victim's neighborhood so that Williams' girlfriend Teele could examine the jewelry.

The victim met Williams and Teele at the arranged location; Teele was driving a red Dodge Neon, with Williams sitting in the front passenger seat. The victim got into the back seat of the vehicle, retrieved a necklace from his backpack, and handed it to Williams. As the victim was returning the necklace to his bag, Williams pointed a gun at him, grabbed his backpack, and threatened to shoot him if he did not “leave everything.” The victim got out of the vehicle and started running. Williams got out of the vehicle, walked around to the front of the vehicle, pointed the gun at the victim again, and threatened him. The victim ran faster, hid behind a car, and watched Williams and Teele drive away. According to the victim, Teele sat in the driver's seat of the car during the entire exchange, looking forward and remaining silent. And Teele “appear[ed] to wait for [Williams] so that he could get back in the vehicle.”

The victim called police from his cell phone, and the dispatcher sent out the location of the robbery, a description of the two assailants, including their sex and race, as well as a description of a red Dodge Neon. An officer spotted the vehicle with the two occupants matching the dispatch description, and followed it to a parking lot in an apartment complex. After the officer activated his blue lights, the male passenger got out of the car and ran.

Because back-up officers had not yet arrived, the officer pulled out his gun when he approached Teele, who was still seated in the driver's seat. The officer testified that he held her at gunpoint because he was concerned for his safety. She initially refused his commands to get out of the vehicle, but complied after the officer “said it a couple more times.” She also refused to get on the ground, claiming that she was pregnant. The officer explained to Teele, “You have to get on the ground[ ] because I don't know if you have a gun. I can't see anything.” Teele then complied with the officer's request, and he held “her at gunpoint on the ground until [his] second unit g[o]t there.”

Once back-up arrived, the officer handcuffed Teele, stood her up, placed her in the back seat of his patrol car, and advised her that she was being detained for an investigation and that she was not under arrest. He then asked Teele for the name of her passenger, and she indicated that she did not know. The officer told her “she was full of it,” to which Teele responded that “she just picked [Williams] up.” When Teele refused to give the officer her own name, he told her that “she need[ed] to think about it because she's going to go down for really bad charges,” and closed the patrol car door. When the officer returned to the vehicle after an unknown period of time, Teele gave the officer her name and date of birth.¹

The police then ran Teele's name and birth date through the computer and determined her address, which was an apartment in the same complex. Police knocked on the apartment door, and Williams answered. An officer asked Williams to step outside for questioning, and Williams complied, stating that, “It was me, not her.” Williams was then secured in handcuffs.

At some point during the investigation, officers removed Teele's handcuffs and asked her to stand at the back of the patrol car while another officer drove the victim by in a patrol car; the victim identified Teele as the woman in the car during the robbery. Following the victim's positive identification, Teele was arrested.

Teele was charged with armed robbery, and Williams was charged with armed robbery, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Williams entered a guilty plea and testified on Teele's behalf at trial. Williams stated that he took Teele, who was his live-in girlfriend, to meet the victim, intending to purchase the jewelry from him. According to Williams, the victim “got rude” when he asked for a bill of sale for the necklace, and Williams felt like the victim “was trying to play [him] on the jewelry.” Williams then drew his weapon, pointed it at the victim's chest, grabbed the backpack, and the victim fled. Williams testified that Teele had nothing to do with the robbery and “it wasn't planned to go down like that.”

1. (a) Teele argues that the evidence was insufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of armed robbery. We disagree. When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence,

the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder's role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.

(Citations omitted; emphasis in original.) Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319(III)(B), 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

Teele argues that other than driving the vehicle, she took no steps in furtherance of the robbery. She also contends that the robbery was not planned and that she did not know that Williams had a gun. These arguments do not require reversal.

OCGA § 16–2–21 provides: “Any party to a crime who did not directly commit the crime may be indicted, tried, convicted, and punished for commission of the crime upon proof that the crime was committed and that he was a party thereto.” ²

A participant to a crime may be convicted although he is not the person who directly commits the crime. A person who intentionally aids or abets in the commission of a crime or intentionally advises, encourages, hires, counsels or procures another to commit the crime may be convicted of the crime as a party to the crime. Mere presence at the scene is not sufficient to convict one of being a party to a crime, but criminal intent may be inferred from conduct before, during, and after the commission of a crime.

(Citation omitted.) Burks v. State, 268 Ga. 504, 505, 491 S.E.2d 368 (1997).

While Teele may not have had a gun, she drove the car and remained in the vehicle while Williams took the victim's backpack at gunpoint. After the armed robbery had occurred, Teele appeared to wait for Williams to return to the vehicle before driving away. Whether Teele was a party to the crime and aided and abetted Williams was a jury question, and the jury rejected Teele's argument and Williams' testimony that Teele had no knowledge of the robbery and was merely driving the car. See Jordan v. State, 281 Ga.App. 419, 422(1), 636 S.E.2d 151 (2006). Under these circumstances, the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's verdict. Id.;Buruca v. State, 278 Ga.App. 650, 652(1), 629 S.E.2d 438 (2006).

(b) Teele also argues that the verdict was “strongly against the weight of the evidence,” citing OCGA §§ 5–5–20³ and 5–5–21.⁴ “However, such an argument may only be made to a trial court in a motion for new trial and not to this Court on appeal[,] and we have no discretion to grant a new trial based on such a claim.” (Citation and punctuationomitted.) Overstreet v. State, 304 Ga.App. 275, 276(1), 696 S.E.2d 114 (2010).

[319 Ga.App. 452]2. Teele contends that the trial court erred by allowing the admission of her statement to police that she had just picked up Williams, because the statement was made while she was in custody and she was not advised of her rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).

When we review a trial court's decision on such motions to exclude evidence, we construe the evidence most favorably to uphold the findings and judgment, and we adopt the trial court's findings on disputed facts and credibility unless they are clearly erroneous. When the evidence is uncontroverted and no question of witness credibility is presented, the trial court's application of the law to undisputed facts is subject to de novo appellate review.

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hesrick v. State, 308 Ga.App. 363, 707 S.E.2d 574 (2011).

The officer testified that after he advised Teele that she was being detained for an investigation and not under arrest, he asked her for the name of her passenger, and she indicated that she did not know. When the officer told Teele she “was full of it,” Teele responded that “she just picked [Williams] up.” When Teele refused to give the officer her own name, the officer told her that “she need[ed] to think about it because she's going to go down for really bad charges,” and...