Graham v. State ( 2022 )

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: March 8, 2022
S22A0053. GRAHAM v. THE STATE.
MCMILLIAN, Justice.
In February 2019, Haleem Graham was tried jointly with
Brantley Washington and Chrishon Siders and found guilty of felony
murder, home invasion in the first degree, and other crimes in
connection with the shooting death of Seine Yale Jackson. 1 On
1 The crimes occurred on January 6, 2016. In May 2016, a Fulton County
grand jury indicted Graham, Washington, and Siders for participation in
criminal street gang activity (Count 1), malice murder (Count 2), felony murder
(Counts 3-7), first degree home invasion (Count 11), aggravated assault with a
deadly weapon (Count 12), false imprisonment (Count 13), first degree
burglary (Count 14), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a
felony (Count 15). The grand jury separately indicted Graham and Siders on
charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Counts 16-18) and
felony murder predicated on those felonies (Counts 8-10). At a joint trial held
from February 19 to 28, 2019, the jury found Graham guilty of Counts 3-6, 8-
9, and 11-17, but not guilty of Count 2. The trial court nolle prossed Counts 1
and 7. The jury also found Washington guilty of Counts 2-6 and 11-15 and
Siders guilty of Counts 2-6, 10-15, and 18. We previously affirmed
Washington’s convictions. See Washington v. State, 312 Ga. 495 (863 SE2d 109)
(2021). Siders’s convictions are not at issue in this appeal. On March 1, 2019,
the trial court sentenced Graham to serve life in prison without the possibility
appeal, Graham asserts that the evidence was insufficient to sustain
his convictions and that he received constitutionally ineffective
assistance of trial counsel for failing to object to testimony from a
detective that, based on his investigation, he believed that Graham
and his co-defendants committed the crimes. We affirm.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdicts, the
evidence presented at trial with respect to Graham showed that on
January 5, 2016, the day before the shooting, Graham, Washington,
and Siders arrived together at a Best Western hotel in Walterboro,
South Carolina around 1:28 p.m. in a red Pontiac Grand Prix. Hotel
surveillance video recordings depicted the vehicle entering the
of parole for Count 4, life in prison for Count 11 (to run consecutively to Count
4), ten years in prison for Count 13 (to run consecutively to Count 11), and
fifteen years for Count 17 (to run consecutively to Count 13). The remaining
counts were merged for sentencing purposes or vacated by operation of law.
The final disposition was filed on March 5, 2019, and subsequently amended
on January 5, 2021, to reflect that Graham was sentenced as a recidivist under
OCGA § 17-10-7 (a). Graham timely filed a motion for new trial, which he
amended through new counsel on February 11, 2020, and October 27, 2020.
The trial court conducted a joint hearing on the defendants’ motions for new
trial on November 2, 2020. On January 28, 2021, the trial court denied
Graham’s motion for new trial, as amended, and Graham timely appealed. The
case was docketed to the term of this Court beginning in December 2021 and
submitted for a decision on the briefs.
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parking lot and three individuals, identified by Detective Scott
Berhalter as the defendants, exiting the car. Additional video
recordings showed the car leaving the parking lot around 8:21 p.m.
that evening. Chris Treadwell, a Taliaferro County 2 sheriff’s deputy,
testified that he conducted a traffic stop on a red Pontiac Grand Prix
with South Carolina tags around 11:27 p.m. as it headed to Atlanta
and cited Graham, who was driving, for speeding. Two other men
were in the vehicle.
Several hours later, at approximately 2:00 a.m., police officers
responded to a call of shots fired at a rental unit behind a house on
Glen Iris Drive in Fulton County. 3 The responding officers found
Jackson dead. He had been gagged with a belt and necktie, “hog-
tied” with extension cords, and shot in the back of the head.
Investigation at the scene revealed no signs of forced entry, but
Jackson’s home appeared to have been ransacked. Officers collected
2 Taliaferro County is approximately 90 miles east of Atlanta along
Interstate 20.
3 The Best Western hotel in Walterboro is 249 miles from Glen Iris Drive,
with a drive time of approximately four hours and twelve minutes.
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an empty clear jar emitting the odor of fresh marijuana. 4 The
medical examiner who conducted the autopsy concluded that
Jackson suffered wounds consistent with being bound and gagged
and that he had died from any one of four gunshots to the head.
Meyonta Murphy testified that when she visited her mother,
who lived in another rental unit on the same property on Glen Iris
Drive, at approximately 1:45 a.m. on January 6, 2016, she noticed
an unfamiliar red Pontiac with two people inside idling in front of
the house. As she left her mother’s home about ten minutes later,
Murphy saw one person remain in the front passenger seat of the
car while the other exited the car and passed by her as he walked up
the driveway toward the house. Murphy took note of the vehicle’s
South Carolina license plate number before she left. Soon after,
Murphy’s mother heard nearby gunshots and called 911. Murphy
told investigating officers about her observations of the red Pontiac
and the man she encountered, whom she later identified in a
4 Later GBI testing of the jar showed a fingerprint match for
Washington.
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photographic line-up as Siders.
Jackson’s brother testified that Siders was always asking
Jackson to “front” him drugs without payment, but Jackson
continued to do business with him because Siders was related to
Jackson’s uncle. Jackson’s friend, Marc Huewitt, testified that
Jackson had visited him just hours before the shooting. Jackson told
Huewitt that he was planning to meet with a man related to
Jackson’s uncle later that evening and was “very concerned” because
he had a bad feeling about the man.
Detective Scott Demeester, who was qualified as an expert in
cell phone data interpretation and cell site analysis, testified
regarding data recovered from the defendants’ cell phones. A cell
phone number associated with Washington – but identified in
Jackson’s phone with Siders’s nickname – called Jackson’s phone on
the morning of January 5; after that call ended, the same cell
number called Graham’s phone. At 6:39 p.m., Washington’s phone
texted an unidentified phone number, stating, “This Brantley. Call
me asap. I’m ready to buy that thing back from you. I got the money.”
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When Washington’s phone called Jackson’s phone around 7:45 p.m.,
Washington’s phone was near the Best Western hotel before leaving
shortly thereafter and traveling in a northwestern direction. At
11:23 p.m., Siders’s phone was near Taliaferro County,
approximately two hours and thirty minutes from the Best Western.
At 11:45 p.m., Washington’s phone sent a text to Jackson, stating,
“Got a speeding ticket lol.” When Washington’s phone called
Jackson’s phone at 1:08 a.m., the phone was near Glen Iris Drive.
That call was the last call ever made from Washington’s phone. The
phone then remained stationary near Interstate 20 in DeKalb
County and received numerous calls that went unanswered.
Graham’s and Siders’s phones placed various calls to each other
between 1:10 and 1:48 a.m. while they were in the area of Glen Iris
Drive. Approximately one hour after the shooting was reported,
Siders’s phone was on Interstate 20, heading east away from
Atlanta. The next time Graham’s and Siders’s phones were used was
in Walterboro on the morning of January 6.
Additional hotel surveillance video showed that the Pontiac
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entered the Best Western parking lot at 6:20 a.m. on the morning
after the shooting and that three men immediately unloaded what
appeared to be heavy bags from the Pontiac. The State also
introduced into evidence a receipt showing that Graham had
checked into a room at the Best Western around 1:28 p.m. on
January 5, 2016, and checked out at 10:00 a.m. the following
morning.
Siders, the only defendant to testify at trial, told the jury that
he and Washington were part of a musical group that Graham
managed and that they met in South Carolina on January 5, 2016,
to work in a music studio. According to Siders, that evening, they
decided to drive to Atlanta for a promotional photo shoot, but
Washington stayed at the hotel because he became ill. Siders used
to purchase drugs from Jackson, and while he and Graham were in
Atlanta, he called Jackson to buy “some smoke.” However, Huewitt
answered Jackson’s phone that evening and told him to come to
Jackson’s house. Siders claimed that when he arrived, he found
Huewitt outside and told him that he wanted “an eighth.” Huewitt
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then responded, “An eighth? Man, I thought you wanted some
weight. We don’t got no eighth,” before walking away. Siders
testified that he then returned to the car and told Graham that
Huewitt was “acting really funny just now,” and they went to a
nearby club where they stayed for a short while before returning to
South Carolina.
1. Graham asserts that the circumstantial evidence was
insufficient to sustain his convictions. We are not persuaded.
When evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, we view
the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the
jury’s verdict and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have
found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes
of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307,
309 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). In doing so, this Court does
not reweigh the evidence. See Ivey v. State, 305 Ga. 156, 159 (824
SE2d 242) (2019). And “[w]e leave to the jury the resolution of
conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence, credibility of witnesses,
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and reasonable inferences to be derived from the facts.” Smith v.
State, 308 Ga. 81, 84 (839 SE2d 630) (2020).
Under Georgia statutory law, “[t]o warrant a conviction on
circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent
with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable
hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused.” OCGA § 24-14-6.
However, “not every hypothesis is a reasonable one, and the
evidence need not exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis
– only those that are reasonable.” Graves v. State, 306 Ga. 485, 487
(831 SE2d 747) (2019) (emphasis in original; citation and
punctuation omitted). And, “[w]here the jury is authorized to find
the evidence sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis
except that of the accused’s guilt, this Court will not disturb that
finding unless it is insupportable as a matter of law.” Anglin v. State,
312 Ga. 503, 506-07 (1) (863 SE2d 148) (2021) (citations and
punctuation omitted).
Graham argues that Murphy was the only witness and that she
testified that she only saw two people in the Pontiac just before the
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shooting and that calls between Siders’s and Graham’s phones
around the time of the crimes indicate that Graham was not the
second person that Murphy saw. This argument, however, ignores
that Washington’s fingerprint was found in Jackson’s house, which
is consistent with Washington being inside the house at the time
that Murphy saw the two people in the car, after which one of them
exited the car and walked towards the house. Siders’s testimony is
also consistent with Siders exiting the car to walk towards the
house, leaving Graham in the car. And the phone records show that
both Graham’s and Siders’s phones were in the area of Jackson’s
home around the time of the murder. Based on the evidence as a
whole, the jury was authorized to believe that Siders was calling
Graham about the commission of the crimes and reject Graham’s
alternative hypothesis that Siders called Graham for an unrelated
reason immediately before the crimes.
Contrary to Graham’s assertion, the State presented evidence
not only of Graham’s presence with his co-defendants at the time of
the crimes, but also of his conduct and companionship with them
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during the critical hours before and after the murder. The evidence
indicated that the day before the murder, Washington or Siders
spoke with Jackson shortly before calling Graham. Graham then
drove the three men to the Best Western hotel and checked them
into one room under his name. That evening, Graham drove the
three men to Atlanta. Graham’s and Siders’s phones were in the
area at the time Jackson was killed, and Graham’s phone called
Siders’s phone approximately six minutes before Murphy’s mother
called 911 to report the sound of gunshots. Hotel surveillance video
showed the Pontiac return to the Best Western early the following
morning and three men unloading what appeared to be heavy bags.
Graham checked out of the hotel a few hours later. This evidence
authorized the jury to reject other hypotheses and find beyond a
reasonable doubt that Graham participated in or aided Siders and
Washington from their initial contact with Jackson through and
after the crimes and was thus a party to the crimes for which he was
convicted. See OCGA § 16-2-20 (defining parties to a crime); Poole v.
State, 312 Ga. 515, 518-19 (863 SE2d 93) (2021) (“[C]riminal intent
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is a question for the jury, and it may be inferred from that person’s
conduct before, during, and after the commission of the crime.”
(citation and punctuation omitted)); McKie v. State, 306 Ga. 111,
115-16 (829 SE2d 376) (2019) (jurors are entitled to draw reasonable
inferences “based on their own common-sense understanding of the
world” that “are ordinarily drawn by ordinary [people] in the light of
their experience in everyday life” (citation and punctuation
omitted)).
2. Graham also asserts that his trial counsel provided
constitutionally ineffective assistance when he failed to object to the
lead detective’s testimony that he believed that Graham committed
these crimes. We disagree.
To prevail on this claim, Graham has the burden of proving
both that his lawyer’s performance was deficient and that he was
prejudiced as a result. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668,
687 (III) (104 SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984). To prove deficient
performance, Graham must show that his counsel acted “in an
objectively unreasonable way, considering all of the circumstances
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and in light of prevailing professional norms.” Stuckey v. State, 301
Ga. 767, 771 (2) (804 SE2d 76) (2017). This showing requires
Graham to “overcome the strong presumption that counsel’s
performance fell within a wide range of reasonable professional
conduct, and that counsel’s decisions were made in the exercise of
reasonable professional judgment.” Marshall v. State, 297 Ga. 445,
448 (2) (774 SE2d 675) (2015) (citation and punctuation omitted). To
establish prejudice, Graham must establish “a reasonable
probability that, absent any unprofessional errors on counsel’s part,
the result of his trial would have been different.” Lockhart v. State,
298 Ga. 384, 385 (2) (782 SE2d 245) (2016) (citation and punctuation
omitted). If Graham fails to satisfy either prong of the Strickland
test, we need not examine the other. See Redding v. State, 297 Ga.
845, 850-51 (5) (778 SE2d 774) (2015).
Here, Graham points to an exchange in which the prosecutor
asked Detective Berhalter: “And after receiving all the information
that you just testified to, both on Friday as well as today, who did
you conclude were the perpetrators of the homicide?” The detective
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then named each of the three co-defendants, including Graham.
There was no objection. However, the record shows that in cross-
examining Detective Berhalter, Graham’s trial counsel pursued a
line of questioning designed to highlight weaknesses in the officers’
investigation, including that the search of Jackson’s apartment
missed two cell phones that were later found by a member of
Jackson’s family, as well as a shell casing later found by someone
cleaning the apartment. Counsel was also able to elicit testimony
from Detective Berhalter that “[t]here are obviously times,
especially with this case, where we just didn’t find everything. You
know, we’re human just like everyone else. And the thing that we
can do is once we correct the mistake, we learn from it and just do a
better job next time.”
“A decision to refrain from objecting to testimony in favor of
impeaching a witness or showing inconsistencies in the evidence is
a trial strategy and, if reasonable, will not support an ineffectiveness
claim.” Koonce v. State, 305 Ga. 671, 673 (2) (b) (827 SE2d 633)
(2019). At the motion for new trial hearing, when asked whether he
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considered objecting, trial counsel testified:
At the time, no. My thought process at the time was that
it was obvious that Detective Berhalter believed that all
three of the codefendants were involved in the incident
and took out the warrants for them, and that kind of fell
in line with the defense strategy being that Detective
Berhalter led a very poor investigation of the crime;
basically just made assumptions about who all was
involved and how they participated; and I thought it was
appropriate to leave that as it was because of the
argument being made that, well, of course he thought
they did it. That’s obvious. And all of the oversights that
he made during his investigation because he had already
developed who he believed was the suspect.
We cannot say that this trial strategy is patently unreasonable. See
Shaw v. State, 307 Ga. 233, 251 (6) (a) (835 SE2d 279) (2019)
(decision to attack the thoroughness of law enforcement’s
investigation was part of a reasonable trial strategy); Brown v.
State, 302 Ga. 454, 461-62 (2) (b) (807 SE2d 369) (2017) (“We have
explained in the context of defense counsel’s failure to object to an
investigator’s bolstering testimony that a sound defense strategy is
to show that the law enforcement investigation that led to the
prosecution was not as thorough or objective as it should have
been[.]” (citation and punctuation omitted)).
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Moreover, Graham is unable to show that any deficiency in
trial counsel’s failure to object likely affected the outcome of the trial
because the jury already knew that the detective had investigated
the crimes and obtained a warrant for Graham’s arrest. See Tanner
v. State, 303 Ga. 203, 209 (3) (811 SE2d 316) (2018) (“[A]lthough it
may have been improper for the detective to share his subjective
belief that Appellant would go to prison . . . , any rational juror would
have guessed that the detective believed as much without being told.
As we have explained before, such comments upon the patently
obvious generally pose little, if any, danger of prejudice.” (citation
and punctuation omitted)). Accordingly, this enumeration of error
fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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