Wood v. State
| Decision Date | 20 October 1988 |
| Docket Number | No. 46053,46053 |
| Citation | 258 Ga. 598,373 S.E.2d 183 |
| Parties | WOOD v. STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Samuel H. Harrison, Harrison & Harrison, Lawrenceville, for Betty doster wood.
Thomas C. Lawler III, Dist. Atty., Michael J. Bowers, Atty. Gen., Eddie Snelling, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Lawrenceville, for the State.
Betty Doster Wood was convicted of the malice murder of John Hurtte and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1 The record shows that the victim had lived with Wood's daughter for approximately two years. Their relationship was volatile and two days before the crime Wood's daughter moved out, telling her mother that the victim had "twisted her arm and pulled her hair." Wood's daughter testified that Wood became "upset and cried" when she learned that her dining room table had been auctioned off because her daughter and the victim failed to make payments on the storage facility in which the table was being held. Between this conversation and the time of the crime, Wood told at least four witnesses, including two police officers, that she would kill the victim if she saw him or if he hurt her daughter again.
On the day of the victim's death Wood drove to the gas station where he worked and spoke to him for several minutes. It is undisputed that Wood drew a gun and shot him four times. She immediately drove to the police station, admitted shooting the victim, and turned her gun over to police officers. At trial the defendant testified that "something snapped" when she shot the victim, and that she did not intend to shoot him.
1. While not raised by Wood, we hold that a rational trier of fact could have found her guilty of malice murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).
2. The trial court gave the following charge:
I further charge you that you may infer that a person of sound mind and discretion intends to accomplish the natural and probable consequences of his or her intentional acts. And if a person of sound mind and discretion intentionally and without justification uses a deadly weapon or instrumentality in the manner in which such weapon or instrumentality is ordinarily used and thereby causes the death of a human being, you may infer the intent to kill. Now, whether or not you draw any such inference or make any such inference from the evidence in this case is a matter solely within your discretion as members of the jury.
Wood argues that this charge is impermissibly burden-shifting under Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979). We do not agree. We upheld an identical charge on intent in Thompson v. State, 257 Ga. 481, 483, 361 S.E.2d 154 (1987), even though it did not contain language "reaffirming that it is within the jury's discretion whether or not it will draw such an inference." The trial court in this case did reaffirm that it was solely within the discretion of the jury to draw the inference. We find no error. 2
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