Tucker v. State
| Decision Date | 13 April 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 38318,38318 |
| Citation | 249 Ga. 323,290 S.E.2d 97 |
| Parties | Juanita Harden TUCKER v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Thomas J. Phillips, Jr., Gilmore, Waddell & Phillips, Milledgeville, for Juanita Harden Tucker.
Joseph H. Briley, Dist. Atty., Craig M. Childs, Asst. Dist. Atty., Gray, and Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., for the State.
Juanita "Gail" Harden Tucker was convicted of the murder of John Henry "Horace" Butts and received a life sentence.
The state showed that the defendant and the victim were sitting in his car outside a local grocery and nightclub between eight and nine o'clock on December 7, 1980, when the victim's wife arrived and she told the defendant to get out of the car and leave her husband alone. The defendant went into the club and, after a brief argument, the victim and his wife followed her into the club. The wife knocked the defendant off a barstool, the women began to fight, the victim left, two men separated the women, and the wife left. At home, the victim and his wife continued to argue.
About a half hour later, the victim returned to the club where he told the defendant that he wanted to talk things over with her and that he would drive her home. Instead, he turned into a nearby dirt road.
There, the defendant claims he asked her if she had been able to obtain the prescriptions she needed for which he had previously given her $20.00. (The defendant testified that she had had open heart surgery in April and was required to take heart pills, nerve pills and blood pressure pills.) She replied that she had spent the money on other things and needed more money to get her medication. The victim opened the defendant's purse and found several bottles of pills. Enraged, he began stuffing pills in her mouth and forced her to chew and swallow about 15 or 20 pills by holding her neck with his right arm, then threatening her with something sharp until she obliged by swallowing the pills. The defendant said that she tried to escape by opening the door, that somehow she got a knife from him and cut him and ran down the road until she fell weak and dizzy into a ditch.
The victim then drove away in the car, but the defendant heard it crash shortly thereafter. Hearing nothing further, and after going to the bathroom, she proceeded sick and dizzy, to the car, where she unsuccessfully attempted to rouse the victim. She then crawled into the back seat where she awoke about 8 a. m. the next day, walked to an intersection and flagged down Richard Edwards, who was the victim's employer. She told Edwards that there had been a wreck and that the victim was dead. After observing the car and body, they went to the home of a relative of the victim to call the police and an ambulance. On the way back to the scene, the defendant told Edwards, "I think I cut Horace last night." She was taken into custody by police at the scene. After being advised of her Miranda rights, she made a statement similar to her testimony at trial.
The autopsy revealed that the victim, who was about 33 years old, 6'3"'" and 200 pounds, died as a result of the penetration by a sharp instrument over 6 inches long into his left chest through his lung, collapsing it, and into a ventricle of his heart, which caused massive bleeding into the chest. No other wound, bruises or scratches were found on the body. The trial court refused to allow testimony that the victim suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and had a blood alcohol content of .44. [.10 raises a presumption of intoxication, Code Ann. § 68A-902.1(b).]
No witnesses testified to any signs of a struggle either in the car or in the appearance of the defendant. She testified, however, that she was taken to a doctor by the sheriff's department the next day and was suffering from 2 black eyes, sore arms and a scar on her head. No witnesses were called who corroborated her statement.
A butcher knife, the defendant's pocketbook and wallet, and several personal items and identification were found on the passenger side floorboard along with some prescription and nonprescription medicine bottles. Several more such vials and loose pills were also found in her bag. Some of the bottles were empty. The victim's wife testified that the knife found in the car did not belong to her husband.
The defendant admitted that she had seen the victim about three times and had had sex with him once, but denied they were having an affair and further denied that she killed him because he wanted to terminate their relationship.
1. In her first, second and seventh enumerations of error, defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, contending that there is no evidence of malice or intent. She urges, on the other hand, that the evidence shows self-defense as a matter of law.
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), involved the sufficiency of the evidence as to intent to kill; i.e., premeditation. There the victim was found partially disrobed in a secluded church parking lot. The cause of her death was two bullet wounds. The defendant admitted the shooting but claimed it was accidental in that the victim attacked him with a knife when he resisted her sexual advances and the gun went off during the struggle. There the Court said (443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789): "... 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." The Court went on to point out that, after conviction, upon judicial review "all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution." (443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. at 2789). Discounting the defendant's claim of self-defense as being incredible (443 U.S. at 325, 99 S.Ct. at 2792), the Court found the evidence against Jackson to satisfy the standard quoted above.
In the case before us, aside from the defendant's testimony, there was no evidence of a struggle. The jury would have been authorized to find that the defendant stabbed the victim (which the defendant admitted) and to disregard the defendant's claim of self-defense. Thus we have a case in which a married man and a woman were together in a car on a lonely road at night when the woman stabbed and killed the man. A jury is authorized to find that a person of sound mind and discretion who intentionally and without justification used a deadly weapon or instrument in such manner as to cause death, had the intent to kill. See Davis v. State, --- Ga. ---, --- S.E.2d ---- (No. 38313, decided April 6, 1982). The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of murder. Jackson v. Virginia, supra.
The jury would have been authorized to find that the defendant asked the victim for more money, that he refused, that she stabbed him and got out of the car, that he drove off and wrecked the car, and that she consumed some pills to create a defense. See Code § 26-704. Or the jury would have been authorized to find that the victim wanted to end their relationship and that the defendant got mad and stabbed the victim. Code § 38-109 does not require a new trial. Harris v. State, 236 Ga. 242(1), 223 S.E.2d 643 (1976). Enumerations of error 1, 2 and 7 present no grounds for reversal.
2. Citing Code Ann. § 27-210, the defendant argues that the trial court committed reversible error in failing to grant her motion to quash the indictment for not granting her a committal hearing within 72 hours of her arrest. The defendant was arrested on December 8, 1980, was indicted on January 12, 1981, and moved to quash the indictment on March 12, 1981. We find no error. Natson v. State, 242 Ga. 618(3), 250 S.E.2d 420 (1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 925, 99 S.Ct. 2036, 60 L.Ed.2d 399 (1979). Manor v. State, 221 Ga. 866, 869, 148 S.E.2d 305 (1966), relied upon by the defendant, is inapposite as it deals with waiver of this statutory right under duress. See Jackson v. State, 225 Ga. 39, 43, 165 S.E.2d 711 (1969). See also State v. Middlebrooks, 236 Ga. 52, 54, 222 S.E.2d 343 (1976).
3. The defendant next complains of the denial of her motion for the appointment of expert witnesses. In her motion, she alleged only an unspecified need to hire an investigator to assist her appointed counsel in the preparation of her defense, a hypnotist "to conduct hypnosis upon the defendant, as defendant maintains her innocence of the charge against her", and a polygraph examiner to conduct a test on her because her offer to take such a test had not been accepted by the state. She further alleges that the denial of her motion deprived her of the effective assistance of counsel and of her due process and equal protection rights.
This case turned on whether the jury believed the defendant's claim of self-defense. It is apparent that the defendant hoped to corroborate her testimony through the use of a lie detector test and by hypnosis. However, the results of a polygraph test would not be admissible absent the consent of the state, which she admits refused to give her such a test. Cervi v. State, 248 Ga. 325, 331, 382 S.E.2d 629 (1981). And we have held that because their reliability has not been established, statements made while a witness is under hypnosis are inadmissible. Alderman v. State, 241 Ga. 496(7), 246 S.E.2d 642 (1978); Emmett v. State, 232 Ga. 110, 115, 205 S.E.2d 231 (1974). Thus, we find no error in denying these requests. 1 The defendant has shown no reason for the trial court to supply an investigator for the defense and hence we find no error in the denial of this request. Ennis v. State, 249 Ga. 222(2), 290 S.E.2d 50 (1982).
Patterson v. State, 238 Ga. 204, 232 S.E.2d 233 (1977), urged by the defendant, is distinguishable as there the conviction on possession of a controlled substance rested solely on the state's expert witness's identification of the...
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