Carter v. State ( 2016 )

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: April 4, 2016
S15G1047. CARTER v. THE STATE.
MELTON, Justice.
Chernard Carter and his two co-defendants were involved in a gunfight at
an apartment complex, and a stray bullet killed Lynette Reese. Carter was
charged, in relevant part, with malice murder and three counts of felony murder
predicated on aggravated assault. At trial, the jury was also instructed on
provocation and voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of both
malice murder and felony murder. The jury found Carter not guilty of malice
murder and not guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of
malice murder. The jury also found Carter not guilty of each count of felony
murder (i.e. the two counts relating to Carter shooting at each of his co-
defendants and causing Reese’s death, and one charge relating to Carter
committing an aggravated assault by shooting Reese, which led to her death).
However, it found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included
offense of each count of felony murder. Thus, Carter had been found guilty of
voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of the alleged felony murder
of Reese, but had also been found not guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a
lesser included offense of the alleged malice murder of Reese.
On appeal, Carter argued that the verdict was an impermissible “repugnant
verdict” because he was found “both not guilty and guilty” of the same crime of
voluntary manslaughter with respect to the same victim, Reese. See Wiley v.
State, 124 Ga. App. 654 (185 SE2d 582) (1971) (where defendant was found
both guilty and not guilty of identical charges in an accusation, the defendant’s
motion in arrest of judgment to challenge the guilty verdict should have been
granted, because “[v]erdicts which are repugnant and self-contradictory cannot
be allowed to stand”) (citation omitted). The Court of Appeals upheld Carter’s
voluntary manslaughter conviction, and we granted Carter’s petition for a writ
of certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in this ruling. As
explained more fully below, although we disagree with some of the Court of
Appeals’ reasoning, we conclude that the Court of Appeals ultimately reached
the correct result in upholding Carter’s conviction for voluntary manslaughter.
We therefore affirm.
2
As an initial matter, it is worth noting that, although the Court of Appeals
acknowledged the potential for repugnant verdicts over forty years ago in Wiley,
supra, this Court has never adopted the reasoning in Wiley. Furthermore, this
Court has not analyzed the concept of repugnant verdicts in relation to this
Court’s abolition of the “inconsistent verdict” rule fifteen years after the Court
of Appeals decided Wiley. See Milam v. State, 255 Ga. 560 (2) (341 SE2d 216)
(1986). Much like a repugnant verdict, an inconsistent verdict involves an
alleged inconsistency between guilty and not guilty verdicts against a defendant
or defendants that cannot be logically reconciled. See Turner v. State, 283 Ga.
17 (2) (655 SE2d 589) (2008); Lucas v. State, 264 Ga. 840 (452 SE2d 110)
(1995). However, because the inconsistent verdict rule has been abolished, “a
defendant cannot attack as inconsistent a jury verdict of guilty on one count and
not guilty on a different count” as a legitimate means of having his or her
conviction reversed. (Footnote omitted.) Dumas v. State, 266 Ga. 797, 799 (1)
(471 SE2d 508) (1996). This is the case because
it is not generally within the court's power to make inquiries into the
jury's deliberations, or to speculate about the reasons for any
inconsistency between guilty and not guilty verdicts. . . . [A]ppellate
courts “cannot know and should not speculate why a jury acquitted
on … [one] offense and convicted on … [another] offense. The
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reason could be an error by the jury in its consideration or it could
be mistake, compromise, or lenity. …” Stated another way, it is
imprudent and unworkable … [to] allow criminal defendants to
challenge inconsistent verdicts on the ground that in their case the
verdict was not the product of lenity, but of some error that worked
against them. Such an individualized assessment of the reason for
the inconsistency would be based either on pure speculation, or
would require inquiries into the jury's deliberations that the courts
generally will not undertake. United States v. Powell, [469 U.S. 57,
66 (105 SCt. 471, 83 LE2d 461 (1984)]; Smashum v. State, 261 Ga.
248 (2) (403 SE2d 797) (1991).1
Turner, supra, 283 Ga. at 20 (2).
Carter claims that the difference between repugnant verdicts and
inconsistent verdicts is the fact that inconsistent verdicts involve a finding of
guilt and an acquittal on entirely separate offenses, whereas repugnant verdicts
involve a finding of guilt and an acquittal on the same offense. However, under
the facts of this case, voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of
malice murder is not the same offense as voluntary manslaughter as a lesser
1
There is an exception to the inconsistent verdict rule that would have no
application to the facts of the current case, if, in fact, we were to consider a
repugnant verdict to be merely a variation of an inconsistent verdict. “[W]hen
instead of being left to speculate about the unknown motivations of the jury the
appellate record makes transparent the jury's reasoning why it found the
defendant not guilty of one of the charges, “[t]here is … no speculation, and the
policy explained in Powell[, supra] and adopted in Milam, supra, … does not
apply. [Cit.]” Turner, supra, 283 Ga. at 20-21 (2).
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included offense of felony murder, and the two voluntary manslaughter verdicts
can be logically reconciled. They are merely two different offenses upon which
the jury was free to find Carter guilty or not guilty based on the facts of the case
as interpreted by the jury. Accordingly, there is no repugnant verdict, and we
need not decide the question whether the rule that we announced in Milam,
supra – which forbids a defendant from attacking as inconsistent a verdict of
guilty on one count and not guilty on a different count – is just as applicable in
repugnant verdict cases as it is in other inconsistent verdict cases.2
Pursuant to OCGA § 16-5-2,
[a] person commits the offense of voluntary manslaughter when he
causes the death of another human being under circumstances
which would otherwise be murder and if he acts solely as the result
of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious
provocation sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable person
[and there was no] interval between the provocation and the killing
sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard.
2
We also note that this case does not involve an impermissible “mutually
exclusive” verdict, “where a defendant is convicted of two crimes, where a
guilty verdict on one count logically excludes a finding of guilt on the other.”
(Emphasis supplied.) State v. Springer, 297 Ga. 376, 378 (774 SE2d 106)
(2015), quoting Powell, supra, 469 U.S. at 69 n.8. Again, here we are addressing
a verdict that involves a finding of guilty and not guilty with respect to
voluntary manslaughter, and not two findings of guilt that cannot logically co-
exist.
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(Emphasis supplied.) In this regard, a person commits the offense of malice
murder “when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or
implied, causes the death of another human being.” OCGA § 16-5-1 (a). Malice
aforethought requires an express or implied intent to kill. See OCGA § 16-5-1
(b). Thus, the “circumstances which would otherwise be [malice] murder” but
for the necessary provocation that would reduce the offense to voluntary
manslaughter would consist of a defendant acting with the intent to kill another
person. Accordingly, in order for a person to be found guilty of voluntary
manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder, that person must act
with the intent to kill, but must also have taken his or her actions “as the result
of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation
sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable person.” OCGA § 16-5-2.
However, malice murder is not the only manner in which a defendant may
commit the crime of murder. There is also felony murder, which requires only
that a defendant, while “in the commission of a felony . . . cause[] the death of
another human being irrespective of malice.” (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 16-
5-1 (c). A defendant need not act with an intent to kill at the time that he or she
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took the actions that led to the victim’s death. Knight v. State, 271 Ga. 557, 559
(2) (521 SE2d 819) (1999) (“The presence or absence of malice is irrelevant to
commission of felony murder”). The defendant need only commit the underlying
felony that is integral to, and leads to, the victim’s death. See Wallace v. State,
294 Ga. 257 (2) (754 SE2d 5) (2013). Thus, unlike the crime of malice murder,
the necessary provocation that would mitigate the “circumstances which would
otherwise be [felony] murder” in order to reduce that offense to voluntary
manslaughter has nothing to do with a defendant’s purported intent to kill. In
this connection, to the extent that Walker v. State, 258 Ga. 443 (5) (370 SE2d
149) (1988) can be read to support the proposition that intent to kill is an
essential element of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of
felony murder, it is overruled.
In short, a defendant must have an intent to kill in order for voluntary
manslaughter to serve as a potential lesser included offense of malice murder,
but need not have any intent to kill for voluntary manslaughter to mitigate the
circumstances that would otherwise constitute felony murder. Because of this
fundamental difference between felony murder and malice murder, voluntary
manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder cannot be seen as the
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same crime as voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of felony
murder. For this reason, the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that the jury’s
verdict in this case did not amount to a repugnant verdict in which Carter had
been found guilty and not guilty of the same offense.
However, the Court of Appeals then went on to attempt to explain the
manner in which the jury may have reached its verdict, stating that
[t]he jury could have determined that Carter fired at the
co-defendants solely as the result of a sudden, violent, and
irresistible passion resulting from the co-defendants’ provocative
act of shooting at him, thus mitigating his offense and rendering
him guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense
of felony murder. Along those lines, the jury could also have
logically found that Carter was not guilty of malice murder because
he did not intend to kill the victim, and was not guilty of voluntary
manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder
because the victim did not provoke him to act.
(Emphasis supplied.) Carter v. State, 331 Ga. App. 212, 219 (3) (770 SE2d 295)
(2015). The Court of Appeals’ reasoning is flawed. As explained more fully
above, the provocation that mitigates the crime of malice murder goes directly
to the defendant’s intent to kill. If there is no intent to kill, the defendant has not
engaged in an act “which would otherwise be [malice] murder” but for the
provocation to reduce the offense to voluntary manslaughter. Once it has been
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determined that the defendant had no intent to kill, there is no malice murder to
be mitigated by evidence of provocation, and the question of voluntary
manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder could not even be
reached. In this regard, a victim’s alleged provocation of a defendant who acts
with no intent to kill would be irrelevant to any determination of that
defendant’s guilt on a charge of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included
offense of malice murder. Accordingly, we disapprove that portion of the Court
of Appeals’ opinion which implies that a defendant could be found guilty of
voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder where that
defendant has not acted with an intent to kill.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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