Gomillion v. State , 296 Ga. 678 ( 2015 )

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: March 2, 2015
S14A1872. GOMILLION v. THE STATE.
BENHAM, Justice.
Appellant Michael Gomillion was convicted of murder and related crimes
stemming from the shooting death of Clyde Chaney.1 For reasons set forth
below, the judgment is vacated and the case remanded with direction.
1. On appeal, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to
upholding the jury’s verdicts. On the day of the shooting, Chaney was at a drug
or “trap” house run by LaQuincy Bryant and Benny Clay. Early on in the day,
1
The crime occurred on October 22, 2005. Appellant’s first trial resulted in a mistrial. On
February 12, 2008, appellant was re-indicted on charges of malice murder, felony murder
(aggravated assault), aggravated assault (of Clyde Chaney), aggravated assault (of Benny Clay),
aggravated assault (of LaQuincy Bryant), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a
felony. The indictment also contained a recidivist count, listing appellant’s eight prior convictions.
Appellant’s second jury trial took place from August 17 to August 21, 2008. The jury convicted
appellant on all charges and the trial court sentenced appellant to life in prison for malice murder,
twenty years each for the aggravated assaults of Clay and Bryant to be served concurrently as to each
other and consecutively as to the life sentence for murder, and five years to be served consecutively
for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The charge for the aggravated assault
of Chaney merged into the malice murder count and the felony murder count was vacated by
operation of law. Appellant moved for a new trial on September 18, 2008, and amended the motion
on January 13, 2011, and June 18, 2013. The trial court denied the motion for new trial, as amended,
on February 14, 2014. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal and the case was docketed to the
September 2014 Term of this Court. The case was orally argued on November 3, 2014.
appellant came by looking for Bryant, but Bryant was not at the house. At
approximately 9 p.m. that evening, several people called 911 and reported
hearing a gunshot and seeing a man wearing dark clothing and a mask fleeing
from the scene. At the time of the shooting, five people were inside the trap
house, including Clay, Bryant, and Chaney. However, Clay was the only one
to meet police when they arrived because everyone else fled. At trial, Clay
testified that he saw appellant (a.k.a. “Little Mike”) in the backyard of the trap
house immediately before the shooting. The shooter fired from outside the
house through a window. Chaney was sitting in a chair which was in front of
the window and which was positioned in such a way that only the back of
Chaney’s head would have been visible from the outside. Bryant testified that
he usually sat in the chair occupied by Chaney the day of the shooting. In
addition, Clay and Bryant testified that Chaney and Bryant had the same
dreadlock hairstyle at the time. Clay said that after the shooting, he saw the
shooter pull off his mask under a street light and he recognized appellant as the
shooter.
Bryant testified that shortly before Chaney’s shooting, he had helped
someone in the neighborhood named Travis make crack from a large amount of
2
powder cocaine that Travis had stolen. Tamir Harris, who was also a
neighborhood drug dealer, testified that Travis had been driving around the
neighborhood looking to get rid of the powder cocaine. Harris said he stole
some of the cocaine from Travis a few weeks before Chaney’s death. Bryant
also helped Harris convert his powder cocaine into crack. Harris said appellant
had been one of his drug suppliers, but that after he stole the cocaine, he stopped
getting his drug supply from appellant. Harris testified appellant soon thereafter
started asking him questions about missing drugs. At that point, Harris said he
assumed that Travis had stolen the powder cocaine from appellant and Harris
ignored appellant’s subsequent requests to meet with him alone. Harris stated
that a few days before Chaney was shot, he was outside with some other people
when he saw a black car drive past. A few minutes later, Harris said a person
wearing dark clothes and a mask jumped out from behind some bushes and shot
at him. Harris ran into the house and was not hurt.
Richard Crowley testified that in 2001 he had a dispute with appellant
regarding money for a trap house. Hours after their argument, Crowley said he
was shot in the back five times. Mary Jane Clark testified that she saw someone
3
wearing dark clothing and a mask shoot Crowley. The State produced evidence
that appellant pled guilty and was sentenced to probation for shooting Crowley.
Brenda Lanell Duffy-Perry testified that, on the day of the shooting, she
saw appellant cleaning a .357 Magnum and loading it with hollow point bullets.
Duffy-Perry said she later heard appellant on the telephone saying, “This is what
I do to someone who takes from me. Murder, b***h.” The ballistics expert
testified that the bullet recovered from the victim was a .38 caliber hollow point
bullet and could have been fired from a .357 Magnum gun, as well as from a .38
caliber gun.
After police arrested appellant, they impounded the black Chevy Impala
he was driving. They contacted the owner of the vehicle and obtained her
written consent to search the car. Upon searching the car, the police found a
blue ski mask and dark clothing. They also found a tennis shoe in the engine
compartment and, in the detective’s experience, such compartments were
usually used for the covert transport of weapons.
The evidence adduced at trial and summarized above was sufficient to
authorize a rational trier of fact to find appellant guilty beyond a reasonable
4
doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S.
307 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
2. In his motion for new trial, appellant challenged his convictions
pursuant to the general grounds set forth in OCGA §§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21,
namely that the verdicts were “contrary to law and the principles of justice and
equity” and were “decidedly and strongly against the weight of the evidence.”
Here, appellant contends the trial court failed to apply the proper standard of
review when it denied his motion for new trial on the general grounds. OCGA
§§ 5-5-20 and 5-5-21 “afford the trial court broad discretion to sit as a thirteenth
juror and weigh the evidence on a motion for new trial alleging these general
grounds.” (Citations and internal punctuation omitted.) Walker v. State, 292 Ga.
262 (2) (737 SE2d 311) (2013). This Court has held:
When faced with a motion for new trial based on these general
grounds, the trial court has the duty to exercise its discretion and
weigh the evidence. The trial court does not exercise its discretion
when it evaluates the general grounds by applying the standard of
Jackson v. Virginia, supra, to a motion for new trial based on the
general grounds embodied in OCGA §§ 5–5–20 and 5–5–21.
Manuel v. State, 289 Ga. 383, 386 (711 SE2d 676) (2011) (the use
of the Jackson v. Virginia appellate standard of review denotes that
the trial court failed to apply its discretion, as the determination if
there is sufficient evidence to support the verdict is a matter of law,
not discretion).
5
(Citations and internal punctuation omitted.) Id. at 264.
Here, the motion for new trial hearing transcript clearly shows that
appellant requested the trial court to exercise its discretion to review the
evidence as a thirteenth juror. In its order denying the motion for new trial,
however, the trial stated that, “The testimony and the other evidence introduced
at trial was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find [appellant] guilty beyond
a reasonable doubt.” This statement echoes the standard of review found in
Jackson v. Virginia2 which is not the proper standard of review when
considering a motion for new trial based on the general grounds. Id. In this
case, there is nothing in the order indicating that the trial court exercised its
discretion as the thirteenth juror. Likewise, there is nothing in the motion for
new trial hearing transcript that overrides the trial court’s own statement that it
applied a legal standard to a matter requiring its discretion. Accordingly, the
order denying the motion for new trial is vacated and the matter is remanded for
2
Jackson v. Virginia provides that the relevant inquiry for determining the sufficiency of the
evidence is “whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any
rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable
doubt.” 443 U.S. at 319.
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the trial court to consider the motion under the proper standard of review. Id.
at 265; White v. State, 293 Ga. 523 (2) (753 SE2d 115) (2013).3
Judgment vacated and case remanded with direction. All the Justices
concur.
3
In light of this holding, it is unnecessary for this Court to address the remaining
enumerations of error at this time. Id.7