Thompson v. State , 295 Ga. 96 ( 2014 )

295 Ga. 96
FINAL COPY
S14A0235. THOMPSON v. THE STATE.
NAHMIAS, Justice.
Appellant Rodney Thompson was convicted of the felony murder of his
mother, Marjorie Lynch. On appeal, he contends that the evidence presented at
trial was insufficient to support his conviction and that the trial court erred in
excluding expert evidence regarding his low IQ and in admitting evidence of his
prior difficulties with the victim and of certain statements he made while in
police custody. As explained below, we find no merit to these contentions, and
we therefore affirm.1
1. (a) Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence
presented at trial showed the following. Appellant, who was then 39 years old,
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The victim was killed on June 5, 2008. On August 12, 2008, Appellant was indicted on
charges of malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. After trial on August 17-20, 2009,
the jury found Appellant not guilty of malice murder but guilty of the other two charges. The trial
court sentenced him to serve life in prison for felony murder; the aggravated assault verdict merged
into that conviction. Appellant filed a motion for a new trial on September 16, 2009, which the trial
court denied on February 15, 2013. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals,
which properly transferred the appeal to this Court on October 8, 2013. The case was docketed here
for the January 2014 term and submitted for decision on the briefs.
was living with Ms. Lynch and other family members in Barrow County. About
a week before she was killed, Ms. Lynch told Appellant that if he did not start
helping with the household bills, he would have to move out.
On the morning of June 5, 2008, Ms. Lynch called 911 and said that her
son had just stabbed her in the back and run out of the house. Sheriff’s deputies
arrived at the house five minutes later, finding Appellant on the porch smoking
a cigarette. When they asked who he was, Appellant said “I’m her son” and
motioned toward the house. When the deputies asked if Appellant had stabbed
his mother, he first said no, but when asked again, he said that he had; he was
then handcuffed and put in a police car.
Inside the house, the deputies found Ms. Lynch lying on the floor of her
bedroom with a crossbow bolt sticking out of her back. She was still alive, and
she told one of the deputies that she had been asleep when she was shot. She
also told a paramedic who arrived at the scene that “he shot me.” Ms. Lynch
was taken to a hospital, where she died on the operating table. The cause of
death was a crossbow bolt wound to the back. The bolt that killed Ms. Lynch
had a “field tip,” which is fairly blunt and generally used for practice, rather than
a “broad tip,” which is used for hunting.
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When investigators searched Appellant’s bedroom, they found a crossbow
and a bolt; the crossbow was in “fire” mode. A sales associate from the Bass
Pro Shop testified at trial that Appellant had purchased the crossbow two weeks
to two months before he killed his mother. The associate explained that he
generally would explain to customers how to use the crossbow and that
customers could also get demonstrations of how to use the crossbow at an in-
store archery range. The associate had examined Appellant’s crossbow and
found that it took 150 pounds of force to cock the bow. He explained that to
make the crossbow fire, it had to be manually switched to fire mode, because it
could not be cocked while in safe mode. Although the associate acknowledged
that crossbows can malfunction, he tested the safety mechanism of Appellant’s
crossbow and was unable to shoot the bow when it was in safe mode, even when
he tried to make it malfunction.
Appellant was taken from the house to the sheriff’s office, where he was
interviewed after waiving his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436
(86 SCt 1602, 16 LE2d 694) (1966). Appellant claimed that he had gone up to
his mother’s room to show her his crossbow, even though she was asleep, and
when he walked in, the crossbow, which was loaded, accidentally went off and
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the bolt hit her in the back. He said that this was the first time he had ever used
the crossbow, which he bought to use for hunting (although he later admitted
that he did not have a hunting license). Appellant admitted that his mother
sometimes asked him to pay rent, which made him mad, but he claimed that he
was not mad at her at the time of the incident. When asked why he did not help
his mother after shooting her, Appellant said that he had heard her calling 911,
so he went outside to smoke a cigarette.
After the interview ended, Appellant was moved to a conference room,
where he was guarded by Investigator Matt Guthas. Although Guthas did not
question him, Appellant began talking. Guthas testified at trial that Appellant
said: “got into this thing with my mom this morning”; “gun”; “shot her in the
back”; “good thing it wasn’t steel”; and “not bad.” At trial the State also
presented evidence that in 1994, Appellant had pled guilty in New Jersey to
threatening to kill his mother.
(b) Appellant contends that the evidence pointed to an accidental
shooting and thus was legally insufficient to support his conviction. However,
“‘[i]t was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve
any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’” Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33
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(673 SE2d 223) (2009) (citation omitted). When viewed in the light most
favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above
was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to reject Appellant’s accident defense
and find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of felony murder based on
aggravated assault. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781,
61 LE2d 560) (1979); Smith v. State, 292 Ga. 620, 621 (740 SE2d 158) (2013);
Brown v. State, 292 Ga. 454, 456 (738 SE2d 591) (2013).
2. The trial court ruled that Appellant would not be permitted to
introduce expert testimony that he has an IQ of 67, which, his counsel argued,
was relevant to his defense that the shooting was accidental because his mental
disability prevented him from understanding how to use the crossbow properly.
Appellant enumerates error in this ruling, but the trial court decided the issue in
accordance with settled Georgia law.
Evidence of a criminal defendant’s mental disability may be presented in
support of a defense of insanity or delusional compulsion (see OCGA §§ 16-3-2
and 16-3-3); a claim of incompetency to stand trial (see OCGA § 17-7-130); or,
since such pleas were authorized, a plea of guilty but mentally ill or guilty but
mentally retarded (see OCGA § 17-7-131) — none of which Appellant raised
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in this case.2 For more than 150 years, however, this Court has consistently
upheld the exclusion of evidence of a defendant’s diminished mental condition
when offered to support other defenses or to negate the intent element of a
crime. See, e.g., State v. Abernathy, 289 Ga. 603, 607-608 (715 SE2d 48)
(2011) (‘“[M]ental abnormality, unless it amounts to insanity, is not a defense
to a crime.’”) (quoting Wallace v. State, 248 Ga. 255, 262 (282 SE2d 325)
(1981)); Paul v. State, 274 Ga. 601, 603 (555 SE2d 716) (2001) (rejecting the
defendant’s argument that “he was entitled to introduce expert evidence of his
mental impairment tending to show his lack of intent to kill,” because “the
expert evidence was irrelevant to the state of mind necessary to determine guilt
in light of the defendant’s refusal to assert an insanity defense or that he was
mentally ill at the time of the conduct in question”); Selman v. State, 267 Ga.
198, 200 (475 SE2d 892) (1996) (same); Reece v. State, 212 Ga. 609, 609-610
(94 SE2d 723) (1956) (“Weak-mindedness alone is no defense to crime. The
2
In addition, OCGA § 16-3-21 (d) (2), which was enacted in 1993, authorizes relevant
expert testimony regarding the defendant’s condition of mind at the time of the offense, including
relevant facts and circumstances relating to the family violence or child abuse that are the bases of
the expert’s opinion, to support a justification defense in a prosecution for murder or manslaughter.
See also Smith v. State, 247 Ga. 612, 619 (277 SE2d 678) (1981) (holding that expert testimony in
support of a justification defense based on battered spouse syndrome would not be an improper
opinion on an “ultimate fact”).
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evidence in the record that the defendant had the mentality of a child nine or ten
years old does not relieve him from responsibility for crime.” (citation omitted));
McKethan v. State, 201 Ga. 23, 38 (39 SE2d 15) (1946) (“That the accused,
though able to distinguish between right and wrong, might be unable to evaluate
the quality and consequences of his act to the same degree as a normal or
average individual, is no defense.”); Goosby v. State, 153 Ga. 496 [1] (112 S.E.
467) (1922) (holding that the trial court did not err in prohibiting a witness from
testifying that the defendant was “weak-minded,” because “the answer would
have been immaterial, as weakness of mind would not have constituted a
defense nor excused the crime”); Rogers v. State, 128 Ga. 67, 68 (57 S.E. 227)
(1907) (affirming the exclusion of evidence that “the defendant, from the time
of his childhood, had been of feeble intellect and weak intelligence,” because the
defense was not that he “was either an idiot or an insane person, or that he
labored, at the time of the homicide, under any form of delusional insanity”);
Studstill v. State, 7 Ga. 2, 3 [6] (1849) (“It is not competent to prove that the
defendant is of weak mind, where it is admitted that he is neither idiot, lunatic
nor insane.”), overruled on other grounds in Armistead v. State, 18 Ga. 704, 707
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(1855).3 See also Bryant v. State, 271 Ga. 99, 101 (515 SE2d 836) (1999)
(affirming the exclusion of expert testimony that the defendant suffered from
post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from childhood sexual abuse because
that mental state was “not relevant to Bryant’s defense of accident” in shooting
the victim).
It should be noted that Georgia takes a more restrictive position on this
issue than many other jurisdictions, where the admission of evidence relating to
a defendant’s deficient mental condition to support defenses other than those
based on diminished mental capacity or to negate a required element of a crime
has been authorized by statute or judicial decision in at least some
circumstances. See generally Paul H. Robinson et al., Criminal Law Defenses,
Vol. 1, § 64 (a) (2013). Georgia, however, is not such a jurisdiction, and if the
law established by our longstanding precedent is to change, it would be better
done as a matter of public policy legislated by the General Assembly.
3. Appellant next contends that the trial court erred when it admitted,
as evidence of prior difficulties between him and his mother, records showing
3
We recognize that the descriptions of mental-condition defenses in these older cases may
be jarring to modern ears.
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that he had previously threatened to kill his mother. We disagree.
After voir dire, the trial court addressed the State’s request to present
evidence that Appellant had pled guilty in New Jersey in 1994 to making
terroristic threats against his mother; the proffered evidence was certified
records including a police report, copies of which had been provided to
Appellant’s counsel in pre-trial discovery. At that point, the court ruled that the
evidence would be admissible, but during trial, the court decided to exclude the
evidence on the ground that the officer who had written the police report was
not available to testify and the other records did not appear to be of the type
required to prove a conviction.
Subsequently, on the second day of trial, the State had the district
attorney’s office in New Jersey send by fax and overnight delivery certified
copies of Appellant’s 1994 accusation, guilty plea form, conviction, and
sentence. The prosecutor showed the faxed documents to Appellant’s counsel
that day; the next day, after receiving the overnight delivery, the State advised
the court of the newly obtained records and moved for their admission into
evidence to prove prior difficulties between Appellant and the victim. The trial
court admitted the certified records over Appellant’s objection that the State had
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not provided him the documents ten days before trial as required by OCGA §
17-16-4 and that the prior difficulties occurred too long ago to be admissible.
He raises those two arguments again on appeal.4
(a) Under OCGA § 17-16-4 (a) (3) (A), the prosecuting attorney
generally must allow the defendant to inspect and copy, no later than ten days
prior to trial, all documents that the State has within its possession, custody, or
control and intends to use as evidence at trial in its case-in-chief or in rebuttal.
Even assuming the State did not meet that requirement with respect to the
records actually admitted to show the prior difficulties, the failure to comply
with OCGA § 17-16-4 does not automatically result in exclusion of the
documents at issue. Instead, the State may be prohibited from introducing
evidence that was not timely disclosed only upon a showing of both prejudice
to the defendant and bad faith by the State. See OCGA § 17-16-6; Bryant v.
4
Appellant also argues on appeal that the admission of these documents violated his rights
under the Confrontation Clause, see U. S. Const. amend. VI, but he did not preserve that argument
for appellate review. During the discussion of the documents that the State initially proffered to
prove the prior difficulties, Appellant expressed concern that there would be no witness to cross-
examine about the documents. However, when the State offered the certified records that were
actually admitted into evidence, Appellant made no mention of his right to confrontation and instead
made clear that his objections were based on OCGA § 17-16-4 and the lapse of time between the
New Jersey conviction and his mother’s death. Accordingly, Appellant waived review of any
Confrontation Clause claim. See Sanders v. State, 290 Ga. 445, 448 (721 SE2d 834) (2012).
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State, 288 Ga. 876, 888-889 (708 SE2d 362) (2011).
Here, although the State did not provide Appellant with timely notice of
the particular certified records that were ultimately admitted, he was aware in
advance of trial of the prior difficulties that the State intended to present because
the State had provided him in timely fashion with the documents that it
originally planned to use to prove the 1994 terroristic threats. Thus, Appellant
has not shown any real prejudice from receiving the certified records on the day
before they were admitted, nor has he demonstrated any bad faith by the State.
We also note that Appellant did not request any of the lesser remedies, such as
a continuance, available to address discovery violations. See OCGA § 17-16-6.
Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exclude
the prior difficulties evidence on this ground. See Bryant, 288 Ga. at 889.
(b) Appellant also contends that the prior difficulties evidence should
have been excluded because the New Jersey incident occurred more than 14
years before the crimes charged in this case. Evidence of prior difficulties is
admissible because “the defendant’s prior acts toward the victim, be it a prior
assault, a quarrel, or a threat, . . . are evidence of the relationship between the
victim and the defendant and may show the defendant’s motive, intent, and bent
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of mind in committing the act against the victim which results in the charges for
which the defendant is being prosecuted.” Wall v. State, 269 Ga. 506, 509 (500
SE2d 904) (1998).5 We have explained that remoteness in time between the
prior conflict and the crime now charged does not render such evidence
irrelevant; instead, “the lapse in time between prior acts and the crime at issue
bears on [the prior difficulties’] weight and credibility rather than its
admissibility.” Faircloth v. State, 293 Ga. 134, 137 (744 SE2d 52) (2013).
In this case, the evidence of Appellant’s prior terroristic threats against his
mother was relevant to show his motive, intent, and bent of mind when he shot
his mother in the back with a crossbow, and to disprove his defense that it was
an accident. That 14 years passed between the incidents was a fact for the jury
to consider. See Rowe v. State, 276 Ga. 800, 806 (582 SE2d 119) (2003)
(upholding the admission of testimony that the defendant had fought with and
hit his wife 10 to 12 years before he shot her to death and claimed that the
shooting was unintentional). In sum, the trial court did not abuse its discretion
in admitting the evidence of Appellant’s prior difficulties with the victim.
5
This case was tried under Georgia’s old Evidence Code. Under the new Evidence Code,
which applies to trials beginning on or after January 1, 2013, the admissibility of this sort of
“[e]vidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts” is governed by OCGA § 24-4-404 (b).
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4. About 40 minutes into his interview at the sheriff’s office, Appellant
said, “I’m not going to say anything . . . . I told you everything already.” The
investigators, however, continued to question Appellant. Conceding that
Appellant could be deemed to have invoked his right to remain silent, which
could make his statements during the remainder of the interview inadmissible
under Miranda, the State elected not to try to present that portion of the
interview at trial.6 The State did, however, present Investigator Guthas’s
testimony about what Appellant said in the conference room to which he was
moved when the interview ended. Appellant contends that the trial court erred
in admitting those statements, asserting that the violation of Miranda during the
interview tainted the statements later heard by Guthas and that the statements
were induced by the investigator’s presence in the conference room.
In Rhode Island v. Innis, 446 U.S. 291 (100 SCt 1682, 64 LE2d 297)
(1980), the United States Supreme Court explained that “the Miranda safeguards
6
Because of this decision by the State, the trial court did not rule on whether Appellant’s
Miranda rights had been violated during the interview. We need not address that issue either,
because this enumeration of error fails even on the assumption that a Miranda violation occurred
during the interview. It should be noted, however, that there is no indication – and Appellant
obtained no ruling below – that whatever questioning occurred after Appellant indicated that he did
not want to say anything more rendered his subsequent statements during the interview coerced and
involuntary.
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come into play whenever a person in custody is subjected to either express
questioning or its functional equivalent,” meaning “[a] practice that the police
should know is reasonably likely to evoke an incriminating response from a
suspect.” Id. at 300-301. This Court has explained the principle as follows:
When a defendant makes a voluntary statement without being
questioned or pressured by an interrogator, the statement is
admissible even in the absence of Miranda warnings; a defendant’s
voluntary and spontaneous outburst not made in response to
custodial questioning or interrogation is admissible at trial. Indeed,
law enforcement officers do not have a duty to prevent a defendant
from talking about the criminal incident if the defendant wishes to
do so; they must not interrogate but they need not refuse to listen.
Velazquez v. State, 282 Ga. 871, 877-878 (655 SE2d 806) (2008) (citation
omitted). Whether a statement was the result of interrogation or was instead
volunteered is a question of fact for the trial court, and the court’s ruling will not
be disturbed on appeal unless it is clearly erroneous. See id. at 877.
After conducting a hearing pursuant to Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368
(84 SCt 1774, 12 LE2d 908) (1964), the trial court in this case found that
Appellant’s statements heard by Investigator Guthas were voluntary and not the
product of interrogation, and the record fully supports that finding. Guthas
testified that he did not discuss the case when he was guarding Appellant and
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did not even ask follow-up questions after Appellant began talking. Guthas’s
mere presence as a guard in the conference room where Appellant was detained
temporarily after he may have been improperly questioned by other officers in
another room was not coercive and did not evoke Appellant’s statements about
the crimes.
[T]he controlling case law excludes from the “functional
equivalent” of interrogation those police statements and actions
normally attendant to arrest and custody. After a suspect invokes
his rights, the police may be in a situation where they choose to, and
appropriately and safely can, leave the suspect, but in other
situations the police may need to transport the suspect from the
crime or arrest scene to a detention center, or from an interrogation
room to a detention center, or arrange for the suspect to contact his
lawyer or family, or deal with other logistical issues.
State v. Brown, 287 Ga. 473, 479 (697 SE2d 192) (2010) (citation and
punctuation omitted). Accordingly, the trial court did not err in admitting
Investigator Guthas’s testimony about Appellant’s statements.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Melton, J., who
concurs in judgment only as to Division 2.
BENHAM, Justice, concurring.
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I concur fully in the opinion as it is an accurate interpretation of the
current state of the law. I write only to expound on the reference in Division 2
concerning persons with diminished capacities which notes that any change in
the treatment of such persons in the criminal context is a matter of public policy
for the legislature to determine. In Georgia, a person charged with a felony may
be found guilty but mentally retarded and as such may be temporarily
hospitalized (OCGA § 17-7-131), but is otherwise treated as any other criminal
defendant. The Supreme Court of the United States has already determined that
offenders with intellectual disabilities (or, in more dated vernacular, the
“mentally retarded”) have less culpability than average criminals. Atkins v.
Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 316-320 (122 SCt 2242, 153 LE2d 335) (2002)
(ultimately holding that mentally retarded offenders are not subject to the death
penalty). See also Nevins-Saunders, Elizabeth, Not Guilty as Charged: The
Myth of Mens Rea for Defendants with Mental Retardation, 45 U.C. Davis L.
Rev. 1419 (2012). It is therefore not a stretch to conclude that a more balanced
approach to dealing with offenders with intellectual disabilities in the criminal
justice system is warranted in today’s society. As Georgia moves forward with
various criminal justice reforms, the General Assembly should consider
expanding its treatment of offenders with intellectual disabilities and look for
ways to reform substantive laws, evidentiary rules, affirmative defenses,
sentencing, and punishment for offenders with intellectual disabilities in light
of the fact that they may be less culpable for their actions than others without
such disabilities.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein joins in this concurrence.
Decided April 22, 2014,
Murder. Barrow Superior Court. Before Judge Motes.
Kathleen J. Anderson, for appellant.
J. Bradley Smith, District Attorney, Samuel E. Skelton, Deborah S.
Wilbanks, Assistant District Attorneys, Samuel S. Olens, Attorney General,
Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Katherine L. Iannuzzi, Assistant Attorney General,
for appellee.
2