Opinion ID: 1342169
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Extraordinary Motion for New Trial

Text: 9. Appellant was sentenced to death February 27, 1981. He filed a motion for new trial, which was denied August 17, 1981. He then appealed to this court. However, on October 2, 1981, appellant filed in the trial court an Unusual and Extraordinary Motion for New Trial as to Sentencing on the Basis of Newly Discovered Evidence. This court ordered that the appeal be held in abeyance pending a hearing and determination by the trial court on the extraordinary motion. On March 8, 1982, the trial court, after hearing, denied the motion. In his fifteenth enumeration of error, appellant contends the denial of his extraordinary motion for new trial as to sentencing was error. Appellant testified at the hearing on the motion that in the latter part of July, 1981, he heard for the first time that Pless Brown might have admitted to Arthur Fryer that he, Brown, had killed Don Thompson. It is not disputed, and the trial court found as a matter of fact, that appellant's attorneys had no knowledge of Brown's alleged confession until contacted by appellant in late September, 1981. Fryer was called and testified that Brown had admitted being the triggerman. However, Fryer also testified that he had met appellant in a cemetery three to four days after Thompson's death and had informed appellant of Brown's admission. Moreover, Fryer admitted that he had been a fugitive from justice from the time of the shooting until September, 1981, when he was caught and placed in the Bibb County jail where appellant was being held pending his appeal. He further admitted that he had known appellant for some 12 to 15 years and that he and appellant had committed a burglary together in 1976, for which they both served time. Finally, he admitted that he had refused to sign his affidavit, which was attached to appellant's extraordinary motion for new trial, until he was told by appellant's attorneys that Brown, whom Fryer also knew well, had already been sentenced to life imprisonment and was home free. Fryer's testimony was contradicted by Hamp Davis, who testified that Fryer had told him that the day after Thompson was killed, appellant had admitted shooting a man but didn't know who he was. The six requirements for granting a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence are well established and need not be repeated in full here. See Drake v. State, 248 Ga. 891, 894 (287 SE2d 180) (1982); and Dick v. State, 248 Ga. 898, 900 (287 SE2d 11) (1982). The trial court found that appellant failed to establish that the evidence had come to his knowledge since the trial, and found that it was owing to the appellant's want of due diligence that his attorneys did not acquire the evidence sooner. The evidence supports the court's finding that appellant, but not his attorneys, knew of the confession, if there was one, and failed to notify his attorneys even though he had ample opportunity to do so. Appellant's testimony that he only learned of Brown's confession long after the trial was over was contradicted by the very witness by whom he sought to establish that such a confession was made. Moreover, the circumstances surrounding the alleged newly discovered evidence, as well as the testimony of Hamp Davis, cast serious doubt on the credibility of Fryer. Drake v. State, supra. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying appellant's extraordinary motion for new trial as to sentencing.