Williams v. State
| Decision Date | 26 May 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 45351,45351 |
| Citation | 369 S.E.2d 232,258 Ga. 305 |
| Parties | WILLIAMS v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Frank W. Seiler, Walter C. Hartridge, Bouhan, Williams & Levy, Savannah Donald F. Samuel, Atlanta, for James A. Williams.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., Dist. Atty., Savannah, David T. Lock, Asst. Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., for the State.
This case comes to this court as a direct appeal, see generally Patterson v. State, 248 Ga. 875, 287 S.E.2d 7 (1982), from the trial court's denial of the appellant Williams' plea in bar in which he contends that the state, by reason of operation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, is precluded from subjecting him to retrial on a charge of murder following occurrence of the following three events in this case: (1) reversal by this Court of the appellant's initial conviction in his direct appeal thereof in Williams v. State, 250 Ga. 463, 298 S.E.2d 492 (1983) (Williams I ); (2) reversal in Williams v. State, 254 Ga. 508, 330 S.E.2d 353 (1985) (Williams II ) of the conviction that was obtained against the appellant in the trial conducted after rendition of the decision in Williams I; and (3) the trial court's declaration of a mistrial due to the inability of the jury to reach a unanimous verdict in the retrial held after Williams II.
In this appeal, the appellant enumerates error, not only upon the denial of his plea of double jeopardy, but also upon the trial court's denial of another motion filed by the appellant in which he seeks the disqualification of the district attorney and his staff in this case. For reasons which follow, we affirm the trial court's denial of both motions.
From a reading of this Court's opinions in Williams I and Williams II, and a review of the record in the present appeal, the facts of this case, including but not limited to the evidence admitted at the trial-level proceedings, can be stated as follows:
The victim, Danny Hansford, was a frequent house guest of the appellant, and the two of them were engaged in a homosexual relationship.
The victim had an explosive temper, and on April 3, 1981 (approximately one month prior to the victim's death), the appellant testified that the victim went into a drug-and-alcohol-induced rage and shot a hole into the floor.
The appellant reported the April 3rd incident to the police on the night of its occurrence. Corporal M.J. Anderson of the Savannah Police Department was the investigating officer, and he testified at the initial trial that when he arrived at the scene, although he found a bullet hole in the floor underneath the carpet in the room in which the appellant stated the shooting occurred, he could not determine whether it " 'was a new type of gunshot or was an old one.' " 250 Ga. at 464, 298 S.E.2d 492. In closing argument, the prosecutor contended that the incident was thus contrived as a prelude to the eventual murder of the victim one month thence.
In the early morning hours of May 2, 1981, the Savannah Police Department received another telephone call from the appellant, in which he stated that he had been involved in a shooting and that the police should be sent.
Corporal Anderson, again the investigating police officer, arrived at the appellant's house within minutes after the call was received. He testified that he found the victim lying face down with his right hand above his head and a pistol under his hand; the victim had no discernible pulse and was not breathing. He had been shot once in the chest, once in the back, and once in the head.
The appellant's trial testimony was that the victim had shot at him when he, the appellant, was seated behind his desk, and, in self-defense, the appellant then fired three quick shots into the deceased.
As stated in Williams I, the state's contention at trial was that the appellant "shot the victim with one gun which he placed on his desk, then shot at his desk and chair with a second gun, and pulled the victim's right hand from under his body and placed the second gun under the victim's hand." Id.
Circumstantial evidence consistent with this hypothesis included testimony by the police that the blood found on the victim's right wrist and hand, as well as the blood found on the gun used by him, had been smeared thereon. And, there was no blood found on the floor in the vicinity of the victim's right hand, although blood was found on the floor underneath the victim. In addition, bullet holes in the floor corresponded to gunshot wounds to the victim's back and head when the victim's head was placed in a position facing to the right; as the corpse was found by the police, the victim's head was facing to the left. Further, the leg of a chair sitting upright was on the victim's pant leg, the pistol used by the victim was found on the appellant's desk, and lead fragments were found on top of this pistol. Finally, tests of the victim's right hand showed no gunpowder residue.
Prior to the initial trial, defense counsel received a copy of portions of the April 3rd incident report pursuant to an OCGA § 17-7-210 request by the defense for statements made by the appellant while in police custody. These documents were furnished to the defense after the trial court had conducted an in-camera inspection of the incident report. Prior to the giving of the jury charge, defense counsel specifically inquired of the prosecutor as to whether any portion of the April 3rd incident report would "take away from" or "not support" Corporal Anderson's trial testimony concerning the freshness of the bullet hole. Id. The prosecutor responded in the negative.
The foregoing statement of the prosecutor was, however, factually inaccurate. As noted in Williams I, although Corporal Anderson's testimony was that he could not determine whether the bullet hole found on April 3rd was " 'a fresh or an old one,' " it was ascertained subsequently that contained within Corporal Anderson's April 3rd incident report was a written statement by him that the gunshot hole found in the floor was "fresh." Id.
It was held in Williams I that a new trial was, therefore, required under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), even though the undisclosed evidence may not have created "a reasonable doubt of guilt which did not otherwise exist." 250 Ga. at 465, 298 S.E.2d 492. More specifically, it was held that, even though the April 3rd incident was not directly in issue in appellant's trial, the defense had made a specific, albeit belated, oral request for information concerning any discrepancy between the police officer's testimony and the contents of his incident report, and there in fact existed a "patent discrepancy" between the two. Id. at 466, 298 S.E.2d 492. In addition, as previously noted, the prosecution utilized the police officer's testimony on this point in support of the state's case-in-chief.
However, as stated in Williams I, the investigating officer's testimony "may or may not have been" intentionally false. Id. And, it is clear that no intentional "corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process" by the prosecutor has been established here. Id. In this regard, the prosecutor has subsequently testified that the statement made by him during the appellant's first trial, regarding the lack of inconsistency between the earlier incident report and the investigating officer's trial testimony, was attributable to a lapse of memory on his part and was not an intentional misstatement. This testimony finds corroboration in the fact that the trial judge, who conducted an in-camera inspection of the incident report, apparently also failed to recall the inconsistency.
The murder conviction obtained against the appellant at his second trial was reversed in Williams II on the ground that the trial court erred in allowing a Savannah detective, appearing as an expert witness on behalf of the state, to testify as to certain conclusions reached by him as a result of certain proved facts in the case. Specifically, based on facts in evidence, this witness testified, by way of expert conclusion on his part: (1) that the victim's head had been moved after he fired his pistol; (2) that the victim would have been unable to move the chair over his pants leg after he had been shot; and (3) that, by virtue of the location of the paper fragment, the appellant must have placed his pistol on the desk before the victim's pistol was fired over the desk.
It was held in Williams II that the trial court's admission of this testimony, concerning these conclusions of the expert witness, was in violation of the rule, found in Georgia's law of evidence, that an expert witness is allowed to testify only as to those conclusions which are 254 Ga. at 510, 330 S.E.2d 353. The majority of this Court held in Division 2 of Williams II that these conclusions did not fit within that category, and a new trial was therefore required, notwithstanding the holding in Division 1 that the evidence authorized a rational trier of fact in finding the appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
It was held in Division 3 of Williams II that a demonstration by the prosecutor of the pull of the victim's handgun should have taken place during the evidentiary phase of the trial, rather than in closing argument to the jury. However, the question of whether this error would have constituted reversible error in and of itself was expressly reserved.
In Williams II, it was noted, as in Williams I, that the state produced evidence of the negative results of the gunpowder-residue test performed on the victim's hands. However, it was also noted in Williams II that "[a]n expert witness for appellant testified that the type of pistol that the victim allegedly used in the attack produced residue on...
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