Williams v. State

• Decision Date: 02 October 2017
• Docket Number: S17A0764.
• Parties: WILLIAMS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Supreme Court

302 Ga. 147

805 S.E.2d 873

WILLIAMS

v.The STATE.

S17A0764.

Supreme Court of Georgia.

Decided: October 2, 2017

Wallace Carter Clayton, II, JONES, MORRISON & WOMACK, P.C., 101 Marietta Street, Suite 3175, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellant.

Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula Khristian Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Michael Alexander Oldham, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, DEPARTMENT OF LAW, 40 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Michael Scott Carlson, Deputy Chief A.D.A., D. Victor Reynolds, District Attorney, COBB COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, 70 Haynes Street, Marietta, Georgia 30090, Gregg M. Jacobson, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams and Aughtry, 191 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 4600, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, for Appellee.

Peterson, Justice.

Derrick Williams appeals from the denial of his motion for a new trial following his conviction for malice murder over the death of his wife, Finesse Dawson.¹ Williams argues that the trial court erred by (1) excluding evidence regarding drugs found in Dawson's blood; (2) admitting evidence of prior bad acts by Williams; and (3) allowing an irrelevant and prejudicial demonstration. We conclude that the trial court committed no reversible error in excluding the toxicology evidence and that any error in the trial court's decisions to admit the prior bad acts and allow the State's demonstration was harmless.

The evidence at trial showed the following. Williams had a history of violence towards his romantic partners, including Dawson. In addition to the evidence about his other relationships that Williams contends is inadmissible, the jury also heard evidence about several incidents of violence by Williams toward Dawson. A neighbor and two of Dawson's former co-workers testified that, in the years leading up to her death, they saw bruises on Dawson that she attributed to Williams. Dawson's former manager testified that on one occasion she refused to allow Dawson to work (and thereby interact with customers) due to injuries on Dawson's face. In February 2012, Dawson called police and reported that Williams had struck her in the face, slashed her tires, and smashed two cell phones. As a result, Williams pleaded guilty to criminal charges and was on probation at the time of Dawson's death.

On December 5, 2012, Smyrna police performed a welfare check at the home of Williams and Dawson in response to multiple 911 calls placed by Williams's uncle. The police found the home's doors locked and its windows, shades, and blinds closed. After a SWAT team broke in, police found Dawson lying face down on the bed in the master bedroom, deceased. Dawson's body was covered with bruises. Clumps of hair were found on the floor, and at least some of the hair was consistent with being forcibly ripped from Dawson's head. One of her fingers appeared broken. Police also found a metal pipe near Dawson's bed.

Williams was not home when the police arrived. He called a friend, Dedrick Bickerstaff, who said Williams was "frantic," and reported that Dawson was dead. Bickerstaff picked up Williams, who told Bickerstaff that he had struck Dawson with her purse but thought she had overdosed on drugs. At Bickerstaff's encouragement, Williams placed multiple 911 calls to police; although he insisted he was "not running," he refused to turn himself in and used disposable phones that he would discard after a call or two.² In his phone conversations with police, Williams said that he had been in an altercation with his wife but had not killed her. He said he had found Dawson cold to the touch after waking up next to her and tried to revive her by performing CPR and placing her in the shower.³ He told police that Dawson had been taking a lot of pills and he believed the drugs contributed to Dawson's death. Williams also admitted to police over the phone that he had inflicted some of the bruises and marks on Dawson's body.

Williams was arrested at a bus station in Nevada on December 11, 2012. In a subsequent police interview, Williams admitted inflicting some of Dawson's injuries and explained that hitting and choking were a normal part of the couple's sex life, but he insisted that he did not kill his wife. The jury heard recordings of phone calls Williams made from jail in which he apparently referred to Dawson as an "ugly a* * b* * * *" and wondered aloud, "out of all the b* * * *es I done had, how the f* * * I get tied up with this b* * * *[?]"

A detective and the medical examiner both testified that Dawson was bruised on virtually every part of her body. The detective estimated that Dawson was struck more than 100 times. The medical examiner testified in great detail to the extent of Dawson's injuries, and dozens of photos of her dead body were admitted, as well as diagrams of Dawson's injuries prepared by the medical examiner. He testified that Dawson's bruising and other injuries were consistent with blunt force trauma, with at least some consistent with being struck by a rod-like object. Notwithstanding the bruises all over Dawson's body, the medical examiner testified that the cause of her death was strangulation, not blunt force trauma. There were no bruises or ligature marks on Dawson's neck, and the sort of facial hemorrhaging sometimes associated with strangulation was absent. But the medical examiner testified that it nonetheless was clear that she had been strangled, given hemorrhaging in her neck and a cut on her neck that appeared to be a defensive wound

. There was no evidence of injuries of the sort that might be caused by someone performing CPR, the medical examiner testified. He also testified that he did not think drugs played any role in Dawson's death given that drugs were present in her system in only "low or therapeutic" levels, no evidence of drug overdose (like foam in the mouth) was present, and there was clear evidence that she had been beaten and strangled.

1. Although Williams does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence, it is our customary practice in murder cases nevertheless to review the record and determine whether the evidence was legally sufficient. Having done so, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Williams was guilty of malice murder. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Williams argues that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding testimony regarding drugs found in Dawson's blood. We disagree. At trial, Williams offered one basis for admitting the evidence. He now disavows that basis and offers an alternative theory that he did not advance at trial. Reviewing exclusion of the evidence under that alternative theory for plain error, we find that Williams cannot obtain reversal based on the exclusion of the toxicology evidence because he cannot show that this evidentiary ruling affected his substantial rights.

Williams proffered the testimony of a GBI forensic toxicologist regarding drugs found in Dawson's system. The toxicologist testified outside the presence of the jury that Dawson's blood had tested positive for Alprazolam

, an anti-anxiety drug; Cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant; and Methylone, a stimulant. The toxicologist testified that Alprazolam causes drowsiness, light-headedness, confusion, impaired thinking or reaction, and possibly lack of coordination. Similarly, she testified, Cyclobenzaprine causes drowsiness, dizziness, and fatigue. The toxicologist stated that Methylone causes euphoria and possibly confusion or hallucinations. The trial court refused to allow the toxicologist to testify before the jury, ruling that her testimony probably was not relevant and, even if it were, its probative value was substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, and misleading the jury.

Williams argues on appeal that this evidence was relevant to and probative of his defense theory that he applied an amount of force to Dawson's neck that was not lethal but for an intervening variable, such as physiological effects of a drug in Dawson's system. But Williams did not preserve any such argument for ordinary appellate review. Where an appellant challenges the admission of evidence, we are concerned with the sufficiency of the appellant's objection; here, however, where the appellant challenges the exclusion of evidence, we are concerned with the sufficiency of the showing that the appellant, as proponent of the evidence, made at trial. OCGA § 24–1–103 (a) (2) provides that "[e]rror shall not be predicated upon a ruling which ... excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected and ... the substance of the evidence was made known to the court by an offer of proof or was apparent from the context within which questions were asked."⁴ "This provision does not require a formal offer of proof in every instance, as it expressly states that error also may be preserved if the substance of the evidence is apparent from the record." Lupoe v. State, 300 Ga. 233, 247 (11), 794 S.E.2d 67 (2016) (citation and punctuation omitted). But the rule also requires that the reason for offering the evidence in question be apparent to the trial court. See id. (substance of the evidence not apparent from the record where appellant did not allude to possible bias as reason for asking witness whether he was a member of a particular gang); see also Kenneth W. Graham Jr., 21 Federal Practice and Procedure§ 5040 (2d. ed., April 2017 update) ("On appeal, the proponent will be stuck with the theory of relevance advanced in the trial court."). The record does not show that the trial court was alerted that Williams sought to introduce testimony to show that any of the drugs taken by Dawson would make someone more susceptible to asphyxiation

by choking. The toxicologist said no such thing in her proffered testimony. And, although Williams...