Young v. State
| Decision Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | S21P0078. |
| Parties | YOUNG v. THE STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
A jury found Rodney Renia Young guilty of the murder of Gary Jones and related crimes. The jury declined in its guilt/innocence phase verdict to find him "mentally retarded."1 At the conclusion of the sentencing phase, the jury found multiple statutory aggravating circumstances and sentenced Young to death for the murder. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm Young's convictions and sentences.2
1. Young had a seven-year relationship with Gary Jones's mother, Doris Jones, that was rife with arguments about money and Young's infidelity and included multiple breakups. After Young came to visit Doris in Georgia in November 2007 and the pair became engaged, Doris moved in with Young at his basement apartment in Bridgeton, New Jersey, in January 2008. The couple argued in New Jersey, and Doris moved back to Georgia to once again live with her son, Gary, in Covington. Young wrote Doris multiple letters between January and March 2008, asking her to return to him. On March 3, Young obtained approval from his employer for time off on March 26 to 28. He subsequently contacted his half-sister, whom he had never personally met and who lived in Atlanta, and he told her that he was coming to see her while on vacation. Prior to his trip, Young borrowed a GPS device from his co-worker and obtained instructions on how to use it.
On March 28, Doris received yet another letter from Young, which she did not read immediately. When Doris awoke the next day, laundry that she had washed the night before had been folded, despite the fact that Gary had been staying with his girlfriend and no one else was home. That same weekend, Doris noticed that the laundry room window had a hole in it and that the screen on that window was missing. Testimony, cell phone records, and the memory of the GPS device that Young borrowed all showed that, from March 28 to 30, Young drove repeatedly from his half-sister's home in Atlanta to the area of Gary's home in Covington. A witness testified that he gave a man with a New Jersey license plate directions from Covington Square to Gary's neighborhood; this witness later identified Young from a photographic line-up as that man.
On March 30, Gary attended church with his girlfriend and then returned home with a plan to meet his girlfriend later for dinner. A little after 1:00 p.m. that day, Gary told his grandmother on the telephone that he was arriving at his home and would call her back in 15 minutes, which he never did. Doris discovered Gary's body in the home at approximately 11:20 p.m. that night and called 911. Gary was lying on his side on the floor in the dining room, and he was tied to an overturned chair with duct tape, a telephone cord, and fabric from some curtains. A bloody butcher knife and a bloody hammer were found next to his body. The victim's body had multiple fractures to the skull, the left eye protruded from its socket, there were sharp force injuries to the neck, head, and face, and there were compression marks on the hands and legs indicating that the victim was alive while bound. Glass in a door leading into the dining room from an outside patio had been shattered, and the home showed signs of a struggle, with blood in the foyer, living room, and dining room. The home had multiple writings on the walls, including the following as recounted by an investigator: "ATL mob $25,000, dead in 20 days, 20 days to get out of state or dead, the hit be on you, were know what you drive, ATL m-o-b, I want my f***ing money, $25,000, you work at GRNCS." The writings were matched at trial to Young's handwriting, and investigators testified that they were unaware of a gang called the "ATL mob."
Upon learning that Young had called her brother-in-law, Doris called Young on the day after the murder. Young told Doris that he would come to get her things and move her back to New Jersey and that he had seen Gary in a dream asking him to take care of her. Investigators interviewed Young in New Jersey on April 3, 2008; he had two cuts on his right hand, and he denied traveling recently to Georgia. A search of Young's car yielded printed directions from New Jersey to Covington and Doris's ring that had been discovered missing from Gary's home, and a search of Young's basement apartment in New Jersey yielded Gary's cell phone and duct tape that was matched to the duct tape used to bind Gary.
Young presented evidence in the guilt/innocence phase in support of a possible finding of "mental retardation" by the jury, including testimony from staff members at his former high school stating that he had been in special education, had been classified as "educable mentally retarded" and therefore must have been tested with an IQ of between 60 and 69, and had struggled intellectually in academics and in sports. However, Young did not present any expert testimony regarding his alleged intellectual disability or any actual IQ test results. The State countered Young's evidence with cross-examination and direct testimony showing Young's ability to function normally at work and in various other settings in life. The State also presented testimony from an expert who, although he had not evaluated Young and had not formed an opinion as to whether Young was intellectually disabled, was able to testify about the subject of intellectual disability in general terms.
After reviewing the record, we conclude that the evidence presented in the guilt/innocence phase was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Young was guilty of all of the charges of which he was convicted and to find, considering the conflicting testimony on the subject, that Young had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was "mentally retarded." See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979) (providing the constitutional standard for the review of the sufficiency of the evidence of a crime); King v. State, 273 Ga. 258, 259 (1) (539 SE2d 783) (2000) (); UAP IV (B) (2) (providing that, in all death penalty cases, this Court will determine whether the verdicts are supported by the evidence).
2. We reject Young's argument, including his arguments specific to the practices of the prosecutor in his case, that Georgia's death penalty laws are unconstitutional in that they allegedly permit unfettered discretion to prosecutors in choosing whether or not to seek the death penalty and thereby result in arbitrary and capricious results. See Arrington v. State, 286 Ga. 335, 336-337 (4) (687 SE2d 438) (2009); Walker v. State, 281 Ga. 157, 161 (6) (635 SE2d 740) (2006).
3. The trial court properly refused Young's attempt to plead guilty but mentally retarded to his murder charge in exchange for a life sentence, because the State objected to such a plea. See Stripling v. State, 289 Ga. 370, 376 (3) (711 SE2d 665) (2011).
4. We reject Young's arguments that he is entitled to a new trial based on several alleged discovery violations by the State.
(a) The record shows that the State disclosed the identity of Wanda Wilcher as a potential sentencing phase witness but listed her address as "private" because she had a restraining order against Young. The prosecutor represented to the trial court that she would have informed defense counsel of the witness's address if counsel had inquired. Under the circumstances, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in not finding any prejudice to Young or bad faith on the part of the prosecutor and, accordingly, in allowing the witness to testify after first allowing defense counsel an opportunity to interview the witness. See Wilkins v. State, 291 Ga. 483, 486-487 (5) (731 SE2d 346) (2012) (applying OCGA § 17-16-6).
(b) The record reveals that Young was aware well before trial of recordings of certain conversations between him and Doris Jones and, more importantly, that the State served him with the actual recordings by the statutory deadline.
(c) The trial court properly held that the State had no duty to disclose the criminal histories of witnesses, because Young had access to those records himself. See Jackson v. State, 306 Ga. 69, 89 (6) (d) (829 SE2d 142) (2019).
(d) After initially noting from the bench that the issue, at least at that time, was moot in light of the State's representation that it was aware of no such records, the trial court then also filed a written order denying Young's request for any psychiatric records of the State's witnesses based on its finding that "[n]o particularized showing of necessity for or even existence of these records ha[d] been made." We see no error. See King, 273 Ga. at 262-263 (11) (); McMichen v. State, 265 Ga. 598, 611 (24) (458 SE2d 833) (1995) ().
(e) The trial court properly declined to conduct an in camera review of the personnel records of the law enforcement officers who would testify at trial, because Young made no "specific showing of need." Cromartie v. State, 270 Ga. 780, 785-786 (12) (514 SE2d 205) (1999).
5. Young argues that the State's use of funds from a victim assistance account, see OCGA § 15-21-130 et seq., to reimburse four witnesses for their lost wages without disclosing this fact to him at trial constituted unconstitutional evidence suppression because evidence of the use of the funds would have served as impeachment evidence. To succeed on an evidence suppression...
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