Teems v. State
| Decision Date | 17 February 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 44143,44143 |
| Citation | 352 S.E.2d 779,256 Ga. 675 |
| Parties | TEEMS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Walton Hardin, Jr., Washington, for Roy Morris Teems.
Dennis C. Sanders, Dist. Atty., Thomson, Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Eddie Snelling, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Roy Morris Teems appeals from his convictions of one count of malice murder, three counts of aggravated assault, and one count of aggravated battery, for which he was sentenced to consecutive terms of life imprisonment for murder, and 20 years' imprisonment for each of the other counts. 1 We affirm.
1. Teems contends that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support the jury's verdicts. There was eyewitness testimony that Teems drove to the scene of the crimes and engaged in an altercation with Henry Lane Ware, whom he shot and killed with a .12-gauge shotgun; that Teems then shot Mildred Moore, and Rhonda Roberson, who was in close proximity to Moore, was sprayed by the shotgun blast; and that Teems thereafter shot at Gwyn Roberson. Additionally, Teems admitted all the shootings.
We have reviewed the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's determination, and we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty of murder, aggravated assault, and aggravated battery beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. Teems contends that his motion for mistrial should have been granted based on the prosecuting attorney's remark in his opening statement that the evidence would show that the Teems brothers arrived with Hugh Teems driving and the appellant
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion. The court directed the prosecuting attorney to state what he expected to prove without "categorizing," and later cautioned the jury that opening statements are not evidence. The remark was a colloquial and colorful way of stating what the evidence was expected to prove, but was not inappropriate or harmful error.
3. It was not error, as contended in enumerated error 3, for the prosecution, during the opening statement to the jury, to write on a chalkboard the names of the crimes which the state expected to prove Teems committed, and the victims of such crimes. Use of a visual aid was appropriate due to the number of charges and persons involved; the written material on the...
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Johnson v. State
...be the victim of malice murder if he was killed in revenge for those past acts, rather than in self-defense. See Teems v. State, 256 Ga. 675, 676(4), 352 S.E.2d 779 (1987). Because the excluded evidence would be exculpatory, if at all, only with regard to a justification defense, the trial ......
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Brown v. State, S98A1875.
...The law will not justify a killing for deliberate revenge no matter how grievous the past wrong may have been. Teems v. State, 256 Ga. 675, 676(4), 352 S.E.2d 779 (1987). "`[T]he bad character of the deceased would not offer the defendant any excuse for taking his life, if he ... took [the ......
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Pearson v. State
..."`[T]he law will not justify a killing for deliberate revenge however grievous the past wrong may have been[.]'" Teems v. State, 256 Ga. 675, 676(4), 352 S.E.2d 779 (1987). "[T]he defense of justification is not so broad as to permit a private citizen to mete out judgment as he sees fit. [C......
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Pena v. State, S15A0430.
...Ga. 339, 342(3), 180 S.E.2d 721 (1971). Therefore, the instruction at issue is a correct statement of the law. See Teems v. State, 256 Ga. 675(4), 352 S.E.2d 779 (1987) (holding that the court's charge, that “the law will not justify a killing for deliberate revenge however grievous the pas......