Bonner v. State ( 2021 )

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: May 17, 2021
S21A0070. BONNER v. THE STATE.
BETHEL, Justice.
Lernard Bonner 1 appeals his conviction for felony murder in
connection with the shooting death of Lekeshia Moses. 2 Bonner
contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction
and that the trial court erred by failing to charge the jury on
accident. We affirm.
1 Although Bonner’s name appears as “Leonard Bonner” on the Notice of
Appeal, this appears to be a misspelling, as both the indictment and Bonner’s
brief refer to him as “Lernard Bonner.”
2 The crimes occurred on July 1, 2016. In November 2017, a Muscogee
County grand jury indicted Bonner for malice murder, felony murder, and
aggravated assault. At a jury trial in April 2018, Bonner was found guilty of
involuntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of malice murder, felony murder,
and aggravated assault. The trial court sentenced Bonner to life in prison for
felony murder. The trial court vacated the involuntary manslaughter count
and merged the aggravated assault count with the felony murder count. On
May 4, 2018, Bonner filed a motion for new trial, which he amended through
new counsel on January 15, 2020. The trial court denied the motion for new
trial, as amended, on February 7, 2020, and Bonner filed a timely notice of
appeal on February 17, 2020. This case was docketed in this Court to the term
commencing in December 2020 and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the
evidence presented at trial showed the following. In the summer of
2016, Moses was staying at her friend Sakima Grier’s apartment to
help Grier care for her three children. Bonner, who was in a
relationship with Moses and knew Grier, went to visit Moses at the
apartment on the night of June 30.
The next morning, Grier woke up to get her children ready for
daycare. Grier walked down the hall to her son’s room where Moses
and Bonner were staying to talk to them about their plans for the
day. During their conversation, Grier saw Bonner sitting on the edge
of the bed holding a revolver. Grier told Bonner that she did not
allow guns in the house because her young son would pick things up
and play with them. Grier told Bonner to get rid of the gun.
Bonner complained that he was tired. He then dumped all of
the bullets out of the revolver into his hand, placed the bullets on
the windowsill, and put the revolver under his pillow. Grier left and
returned to her room. Grier’s four-year-old daughter, who referred
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to Moses as “Auntie” and to Bonner by his nickname, “Baby,” went
into the room with Moses and Bonner.
A few minutes after returning to her room, Grier heard a
sound. Moments later, Grier’s daughter ran out of the room where
Moses and Bonner were staying saying, “Baby shot my auntie. Baby
shot my auntie.” Grier put her children in the master bedroom and
went back out into the hallway. Bonner exited the bedroom into the
hallway and grabbed Grier, stating, “I ain’t tried to. It was an
accident. I’m sorry.” Grier entered the room where the couple had
been staying and saw Moses lying in bed bleeding from her jaw.
Bonner left the apartment. Grier called 911 and did not see Bonner
after she placed the call. Grier also noticed that the bullets Bonner
had previously placed on the windowsill were gone.3
Moses was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Other than
some markings from medical intervention on the body, as well as the
gunshot wound to the left side of her jaw, there were no wounds
3 Witnesses testified that Bonner and Moses generally had a “good” and
“playful” relationship, and that the two were heard laughing and talking
moments before the shooting.
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found on Moses’s body. The medical examiner confirmed that the
gunshot wound was fatal.
There was no sign of a struggle in the bedroom. Police officers
recovered an unspent Winchester brand .38-caliber Special bullet
from under the bed in the bedroom. Bonner, who was not at the
scene when the police arrived, turned himself in on July 2. No gun
was ever recovered.
At trial, a firearms examiner testified that another .38-caliber
bullet was recovered during Moses’s autopsy. That bullet was tested
and found to be consistent with having been fired from a revolver.
The firearms examiner further testified that there are two types of
revolvers: single-action and double-action. A single-action revolver
requires the hammer to be physically pulled back in order to fire and
has a three-pound trigger weight. A double-action does not require
the hammer to be physically pulled back, but requires seven to ten
pounds of pressure to pull the trigger, and the trigger has to be
pulled back farther and held back in order for the hammer to fall
forward and cause the gun to fire. Thus, the revolver used to shoot
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Moses either required force to pull the hammer back as a separate
preparatory act before firing, or it required a greater degree of force
against the trigger to both draw the hammer and discharge the
weapon.
Grier also testified that the gun she saw Bonner holding was
rusty. The firearms examiner testified that while a revolver’s rusty
condition could impact its functionality or internal safeties, the rust
would not increase the likelihood of the gun firing accidentally. If
anything, rust could cause the gun to not work at all.
2. Bonner argues that the evidence presented at his trial was
legally insufficient to support his conviction because the State failed
to prove that he possessed the requisite intent to commit the offense
of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, which was the
predicate offense for his felony murder conviction. See Holliman v.
State, 257 Ga. 209, 210 (1) (356 SE2d 886) (1987) (“Felony murder .
. . require[s] that the defendant possess the requisite criminal intent
to commit the underlying felony.”). We disagree.
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OCGA § 16-5-1 (c) provides that “[a] person commits the offense
of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he or she causes the
death of another human being irrespective of malice.” OCGA § 16-5-
21 (a) provides, in relevant part, that “[a] person commits the offense
of aggravated assault when he or she assaults . . . [w]ith a deadly
weapon[.]” This offense requires proof of an underlying assault,
which can be shown by evidence of the defendant’s attempt to inflict
a violent injury upon another or intent to do an act that places
another in reasonable apprehension of immediate violent injury. See
OCGA § 16-5-20 (a) (defining assault); see also Guyse v. State, 286
Ga. 574, 576-577 (2) (690 SE2d 406) (2010).
In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence as a matter of
constitutional due process, this Court views the evidence in the light
most favorable to the verdict to determine whether any rational trier
of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond
a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (III)
(B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). Any conflicts in the evidence
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are resolved by the jury. See Walker v. State, 296 Ga. 161, 163 (1)
(766 SE2d 28) (2014).
When viewed in this light, the evidence presented at trial and
summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to
conclude that Bonner intended to commit an assault against Moses
using a deadly weapon (the revolver) and that Moses died as the
result of being shot by Bonner. Bonner admitted to Grier that he
shot Moses, although he immediately claimed that it was an
accident. However, expert testimony from a firearms examiner
established that the type of gun used to shoot Moses either required
force to pull the hammer back as a separate preparatory act before
firing or required a greater degree of force against the trigger to both
draw the hammer back and discharge the weapon. Bonner fled
immediately following the shooting, and the police never recovered
the gun. Moments before the shooting, Bonner had unloaded the
bullets from his gun and placed them on the windowsill after Grier
asked him not to have a gun in the apartment, but the bullets were
gone from the windowsill after the shooting. From this evidence, the
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jury could reasonably infer that Bonner reloaded the gun and then
shot Moses. Accordingly, the jury was free to reject Bonner’s
statement to Grier that the shooting was “an accident.” See Eberhart
v. State, 307 Ga. 254, 262 (2) (a) (835 SE2d 192) (2019). The evidence
was thus sufficient to support the jury’s determination that Bonner
committed an aggravated assault against Moses with a deadly
weapon resulting in Moses’s death, as charged in the indictment.
Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient to support Bonner’s
conviction for felony murder predicated on the aggravated assault.
See Jackson, 443 U. S. at 319 (III) (B); see also Vega v. State, 285
Ga. 32, 33 (1) (673 SE2d 223) (2009) (“’It was for the jury to
determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any
conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’” (citation omitted));
Atkins v. State, 310 Ga. 246, 248-249 (1) (850 SE2d 103) (2020).
Therefore, this enumeration fails.
3. Bonner next argues that the trial court erred in failing to
instruct the jury on accident. We disagree.
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Under Georgia law, in order to warrant a jury instruction on
the defense of “accident,” more must be shown than simply an
unintended or undesirable outcome. There must also be evidence of
an absence of criminal intent or negligence. See OCGA § 16-2-2 (“A
person shall not be found guilty of any crime committed by
misfortune or accident where it satisfactorily appears there was no
criminal scheme or undertaking, intention, or criminal
negligence.”); see also Kellam v. State, 298 Ga. 520, 523 (2) (783
SE2d 117) (2016) (“[I]n order to claim accident, it must be
established a defendant acted without criminal intent, was not
engaged in a criminal scheme, and was not criminally negligent, i.e.,
did not act in a manner showing an utter disregard for the safety of
others who might reasonably be expected to be injured thereby.”
(citation and punctuation omitted)). The evidence justifying the
accident defense instruction need only be “slight,” and “whether the
evidence presented is sufficient to authorize a charge is a question
of law.” Wilson v. State, 279 Ga. 104, 105 (2) (610 SE2d 66) (2005).
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Immediately following the shooting, Bonner exclaimed to
Grier, “I ain’t tried to. It was an accident.” In his brief on appeal,
Bonner argues that these statements and other evidence about the
shooting create the slight evidence needed to justify giving an
instruction on accident. Conclusory “[c]laims by a defendant that he
‘didn’t mean to do it’ and ‘it was an accident’ are insufficient without
more to authorize a charge on accident.” Mills v. State, 287 Ga. 828,
832 (4) (700 SE2d 544) (2010) (citing McDade v. State, 270 Ga. 654,
656 (5) (513 SE2d 733) (1999)). Thus, there must be some other
evidence showing that the shooting occurred in the “absence of a
criminal scheme, undertaking, intention, or criminal negligence” to
authorize a jury instruction on accident. OCGA § 16-2-2; see also
Wainwright v. State, 305 Ga. 63, 71 (5) (a) (823 SE2d 749) (2019)
(explaining that when the defendant acts with criminal intent or
criminal negligence, a charge on accident is not warranted).
Other than Bonner’s conclusory statement to Grier, no other
evidence at trial suggested that Bonner’s shooting of Moses was
accidental. Bonner points to evidence that his gun was rusty, but
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there was no evidence that the gun malfunctioned and fired
accidentally as the result of rust. Moreover, the firearms examiner
testified that rust could, at most, prevent a gun from firing (rather
than causing it to fire accidentally).
Bonner also notes that there was evidence that he was tired on
the morning of the shooting, that he and Moses had a “good” and
“playful” relationship, and that they were heard laughing and
talking moments before the shooting. However, such evidence gave
no indication of how the shooting of Moses actually occurred. By
contrast, the State presented evidence that Bonner had placed all of
the bullets from his gun on the windowsill when he was confronted
by Grier about having a gun in her apartment. He would thus have
had to later reload at least one round of ammunition into his gun
before shooting Moses. The evidence also showed that Moses was
shot in the jaw and that, depending on the type of revolver he had,
Bonner would have had to either pull the gun’s hammer back before
firing or apply a greater degree of force to pull the trigger and fire.
None of that evidence suggested that Bonner shot Moses
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accidentally. To the contrary, such evidence suggests that Bonner
acted with at least criminal negligence, which negates his ability to
avail himself of the defense of accident. See New v. State, 260 Ga.
441, 442 (1) (396 SE2d 486) (1990) (“[A]iming a gun at someone’s
face is an utter disregard for the safety of that person and
constitutes criminal negligence. Therefore, according to OCGA § 16-
2-2, the defense of accident is inapplicable.”). Because an instruction
on the law of accident was therefore not authorized by the evidence
presented at trial, the trial court did not err by refusing to give it.
See Campbell v. State, 263 Ga. 824, 825 (3) (440 SE2d 5) (1994)
(“[U]nless there was evidence to authorize a finding that the fatal
shot had been fired without any ‘criminal scheme or undertaking,
intention, or criminal negligence’ on the part of appellant, the trial
court correctly refused to give a charge on the defense of accident.”).
Accordingly, this enumeration of error fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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