Court Opinion

ID: 9556984
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 13:03:51.260207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:50.097556
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court
Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the
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prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and
official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

                                                    Decided: August 21, 2023

                      S23A0636. RANDOLPH v. THE STATE.

         MCMILLIAN, Justice.

        In March 2016, a jury found James Lorenzo Randolph guilty of

malice murder, armed robbery, and other crimes in connection with

the armed robbery of Carlos Torres and Dennis Dixon and the

shooting death of Rodney Castlin. 1 On appeal, Randolph asserts that

        1 Castlin was killed on December 7, 2000. In December 2014, a Cobb

County grand jury indicted Randolph on charges of malice murder (Count 1),
felony murder (Count 2), criminal attempt to commit armed robbery against
Castlin (Count 3), two counts of armed robbery against Torres and Dixon,
respectively (Counts 4 and 6), aggravated assault of Torres (Count 5), and
possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 7). At a trial
in March 2016, a jury found Randolph guilty of all counts. The trial court
sentenced Randolph to serve three consecutive life sentences in prison on
Counts 1, 4, and 6. In addition, the trial court sentenced Randolph to serve ten
years in prison on Count 3, twenty years on Count 5, and five years on Count
7, with each sentence to be served consecutively for a total of three life
sentences plus thirty-five years in confinement. Count 2 was vacated by
operation of law. Randolph timely filed a motion for new trial, which he later
amended through new counsel on October 14, 2022. Following a hearing, the
trial court denied the motion for new trial on December 27, 2022. Randolph
timely appealed, and the case was docketed to the April 2023 term of this Court
and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions because the

State failed to corroborate the testimony of an accomplice and that

the trial court erred in admitting evidence of two other acts under

OCGA § 24-4-404 (b). Because we conclude that the accomplice’s

testimony was sufficiently corroborated by other evidence admitted

at trial, that the trial court did not err in admitting one prior

incident of armed robbery, and that any error in admitting the other

incident (a home burglary) was harmless, we affirm.

     The evidence introduced at trial shows that on December 7,

2000, Torres was working as a front desk clerk at a Wingate Inn in

Kennesaw. Around 10:00 p.m., a man jumped over the front counter,

pointed a gun at Torres, and said, “Give me the money.” Fearing that

he would be shot, Torres held the hotel’s cash drawer out, and the

man took the money from it. Castlin, who was working as the night

manager and had been in the back office, came around the corner to

see what was going on. The man asked Castlin if there was a safe,

and Castlin told him there was not. The man, however, continued to

point the gun at Castlin and repeatedly asked where the safe was.

                                 2
The man then hit Torres in the head with the butt of the gun,

causing him to fall to the ground and lose consciousness. When

Torres awoke, he heard a gunshot and stood up in time to see

someone jump over the counter and run out. Castlin was lying on

the ground, bleeding from his chest. Torres later described the man

as slim, about five feet and eleven inches or six feet tall, and wielding

a black revolver. Torres was able to give a description of the shooter

to a sketch artist, and the drawing was admitted at trial. Later at

trial, a photograph showing what Randolph looked like in 2000 was

also admitted.

     Dixon was a guest at the hotel that evening and was in the

computer room of the lobby when he heard “a bunch of ruckus.”

Dixon looked out to see two men dressed in black and wearing masks

come through the front door. One of the men put his hands down on

the front desk and jumped over it, while the other came into the

computer room and ordered Dixon to get on the floor and to empty

his pockets. Dixon did not see a weapon, but the man had his hand

in his pocket like he was pointing something at Dixon. Fearing that

                                   3
he could be shot, Dixon gave his money to the man. During this time,

Dixon heard the other man say numerous times, “[O]pen the safe or

I’m going to shoot you.” He then heard a gunshot and closed his eyes.

After he heard the men run out of the hotel, Dixon hid for a time and

then fled down the hall to the room of his traveling companion and

called 911.

     LeeAnn Bennett, a supervising emergency room nurse, was

also a guest at the hotel that night. When she heard someone yelling

that someone had been shot, she ran out of her room and found

Castlin lying on the floor behind the front desk with an apparent

chest wound. His eyes were open, but he was not breathing

regularly. She administered aid until EMTs arrived. Castlin was

pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. A medical

examiner concluded that Castlin’s cause of death was a gunshot

wound to the chest.

     A crime scene investigator with the Cobb County Police

Department collected a .22-caliber bullet from the scene and lifted

fingerprints from the front counter, which were entered into a data

                                 4
base that only included fingerprints from Georgia, and no

fingerprint match was identified. The Cobb County Police

Department continued to periodically run searches of the

fingerprints over the years, and eventually, in July 2012, a search

of the federal fingerprint database maintained by the FBI yielded a

list of possible matches that included Randolph’s name. Following a

manual comparison, a Cobb County Police Department fingerprint

analyst determined that Randolph’s fingerprints matched the set of

prints lifted from the hotel in 2000. The match was later confirmed

by a retired GBI fingerprint expert. 2

      Cobb County Investigator John Dawes testified that in June

2012, he spoke with a detective in Jacksonville, Florida, concerning

information that the detective had obtained that he believed might

be relevant to an old Cobb County case. The detective explained that

      2 At trial, Randolph’s counsel argued that Randolph could have left the

fingerprints at some time prior to the shooting. However, the general manager
for the Wingate Inn, which had just opened two weeks prior to the shooting,
testified that Randolph was not an employee of the hotel, nor had he been a
guest at the hotel. She also explained that the surfaces of the lobby, including
the front desk counter, were cleaned several times each shift.
                                       5
counsel for Ruel Brown, who was facing unrelated charges in

Florida, had represented to him that Brown had information about

a shooting that occurred in November or December 2000 at a hotel

north of Atlanta with the word “Win” in the name. Dawes

determined that Brown was likely referring to the unsolved shooting

at the Wingate Inn in Kennesaw. Dawes eventually obtained a

statement from Brown in September 2014, in which Brown

identified Randolph as the shooter. Following his arrest in South

Carolina for the murder of Castlin, Randolph called the mother of

his child while detained in jail there and told her that “they got”

him “for something fourteen years ago” and that his “life [was]

changed now.” A recording of this phone call was played for the jury.

     Following a grant of immunity, Brown testified on behalf of the

State at trial. 3 Brown explained that he had known Randolph since

Randolph was 13 or 14 years old. In 2000, Brown lived in Columbia,

South Carolina, but traveled back and forth to Atlanta as part of a

     3 At the time of trial, Brown was serving a 15-year federal prison
sentence on sex trafficking charges.
                                  6
sex trafficking ring he was involved in. In December 2000,

Randolph, who was about six feet tall with a slender build at the

time, 4 and another man, whom Brown refused to identify, wanted to

come with Brown to Atlanta, and Brown agreed. Around 10:00 p.m.

on December 7, 2000, the three men went to Cobb County for the

purpose of robbing the Wingate Inn. Randolph, carrying Brown’s

small-caliber handgun, and the third man went inside while Brown

waited outside in the car, parked in a position where he could see

into the lobby. Brown saw Randolph behind the counter with the

gun pointed at a man who had his hands up. Brown saw the flash of

the gun being fired and the man fall backward. Randolph and the

third man, who had been out of view, ran out of the hotel and into

Brown’s car, and Brown immediately drove off toward the interstate.

     Brown testified that he was really upset and “was kind of

giving it to” Randolph because the shooting was not part of the plan.

Randolph claimed that he had to shoot because the victim had been

coming toward him. The three of them divided up the money that

     4 Brown testified that he weighed about 300 pounds in 2000.

                                    7
they had stolen from the cash register and from Dixon. Brown

initially wanted to drive straight to South Carolina, but decided that

they should stay somewhere nearby so they could find out if the

victim had died. Brown dropped the gun in a storm drain, and then

the three men slept in the car while they waited for the morning

newspaper to be delivered. The following morning, after reading

that the victim had died, they returned to Columbia, South Carolina.

     The State also presented evidence of two prior offenses

committed by Randolph. Jagdish Patel testified that on December 4,

2000, three days before the shooting at the Wingate Inn, he was

working at a Blimpie restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina when

a man came in around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. with a gun and said, “Give

me the money. Otherwise I’ll shoot you.” The man then climbed over

the counter and told Patel to lie down on the floor and asked where

the safe was. When Patel told him there was no safe, the man

demanded his wallet. The man then took the money from Patel’s

wallet and the money in the cash register and ran out the back door.

Patel described the man as young, thin, and less than six feet tall. A

                                  8
fingerprint located on the cash register was found to match

Randolph’s, and Randolph pleaded guilty to armed robbery in

connection with that incident and served a ten-year sentence.

     Edward McIntosh testified that on April 29, 2011, someone

kicked in the door to his home in Columbia and stole several

televisions, his wife’s jewelry, and a laptop. Fingerprints recovered

from inside the home matched Randolph’s, and the Richland County

Sheriff’s Department took out an arrest warrant for Randolph,

which was still outstanding at the time of trial.

     1. Randolph contends that the evidence was insufficient to

support his convictions because the State’s evidence was based in

whole upon the testimony of Brown, an unindicted co-conspirator,

and the testimony was not sufficiently corroborated under OCGA §

24-14-8. We are not persuaded.

     Although “[t]he testimony of a single witness is generally

sufficient to establish a fact,” Georgia statutory law provides that,

in “felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice,” the

witness’s testimony alone is not sufficient. OCGA § 24-14-8. “Thus,

                                  9
when the only witness is an accomplice, corroborating evidence is

required to support a guilty verdict,” Barber v. State, 314 Ga. 759,

763 (1) (879 SE2d 428) (2022) (citation and punctuation omitted),

and the jury was so instructed. However, “only slight evidence of

corroboration is required,” and, as long as the corroborating

evidence “directly connects the defendant to the crime or leads to the

inference of guilt,” the corroboration may consist entirely of

circumstantial evidence.” Id. (citation and punctuation omitted).

     Here, the State showed that the physical description of the

assailant with the gun who came into the hotel matched Randolph,

whose fingerprint was found on the front-desk counter at the hotel,

which had just opened two weeks prior and at which Randolph had

been neither a guest nor an employee. The jury was also able to

independently compare an artist’s sketch rendered based on Torres’s

description with a photograph of Randolph taken in 2000. And while

in jail in 2014, Randolph made incriminating statements that were

played for the jury. This evidence was more than sufficient to

corroborate Brown’s testimony as a matter of Georgia statutory

                                 10
law. 5 See Poole v. State, 312 Ga. 515, 522 (863 SE2d 93) (2021)

(accomplice testimony sufficiently corroborated by physical evidence

collected at the scene, along with other evidence); Johnson v. State,

288 Ga. 803, 805-806 (2) (708 SE2d 331) (2011) (jury was authorized

to find that a witness’s physical description of the shooter matched

that of the defendant and that the accomplice’s testimony was

therefore sufficiently corroborated). Accordingly, this enumeration

of error fails.

      2. Randolph also asserts that the trial court erred in admitting

evidence of the 2000 armed robbery and the 2011 home burglary as

other-acts evidence under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b) (“Rule 404 (b)”). To

be admissible under Rule 404 (b), other-acts evidence must satisfy a

three-part test:

      (1) the evidence is relevant to an issue in the case other
      than the defendant’s character, (2) the probative value is
      not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair
      prejudice as required by OCGA § 24-4-403 (“Rule 403”),
      and (3) there is sufficient proof for a jury to find by a

      5 Randolph does not assert that the evidence was insufficient as a matter

of constitutional due process, so we do not address that issue. See Davenport
v. State, 309 Ga. 385, 392 (4) (846 SE2d 83) (2020) (holding that we no longer
routinely review the sufficiency of the evidence in non-death penalty cases).
                                      11
      preponderance of the evidence that the defendant
      committed the prior act.

Lowe v. State, 314 Ga. 788, 792 (2) (a) (879 SE2d 492) (2022) (citation

and punctuation omitted). “We review the trial court’s decision to

admit evidence pursuant to Rule 404 (b) for a clear abuse of

discretion.” Hood v. State, 309 Ga. 493, 499 (2) (847 SE2d 172)

(2020).

      Here, following a pretrial hearing, the trial court entered an

order admitting evidence of both the 2000 armed robbery and the

2011 home burglary under Rule 404 (b) for the purposes of proving

intent, motive, plan, or modus operandi. 6 In considering the issue

again at the motion for new trial stage, the trial court determined

that the 2000 armed robbery was relevant to show Randolph’s intent

because he pleaded not guilty in this case and maintained his

innocence throughout trial and that it was also relevant to show

plan and modus operandi because of the similarities between the

      6 Although Randolph argues that the trial court improperly admitted the

evidence to show identity, there is no indication in the record that the State
sought to introduce the evidence for this purpose or that the trial court
included identity as one of the limited purposes for admission of the evidence.
                                      12
two robberies. Although the State conceded at the motion for new

trial hearing that the 2011 home burglary evidence should not have

been admitted, the trial court found that its admission was harmless

in light of the overwhelming evidence against Randolph and because

the error caused minimal prejudice, especially in light of the

properly admitted 2000 armed robbery.

(a) Randolph argues that evidence of the 2000 armed robbery was

inadmissible under both the relevance and probative-value-versus-

unfair-prejudice prongs of the Rule 404 (b) test.7 According to

Randolph, the 2000 armed robbery was not relevant to show intent

because it was not committed with the same state of mind as the

charged murder in this case. This argument fails. Because Randolph

entered a plea of not guilty to the armed robbery charges and did not

otherwise take affirmative steps to remove intent as an issue, he

made intent “a material issue” in this case. Hood, 309 Ga. at 499-

500   (2)   (citation   and    punctuation      omitted).   Under     such

      7 Randolph does not challenge the third prong with respect to his 2000

armed robbery conviction.
                                    13
circumstances, “the State may prove intent by qualifying Rule 404

(b) evidence.” Naples v. State, 308 Ga. 43, 51 (2) (e) (838 SE2d 780)

(2020) (citation and punctuation omitted). Thus, the trial court did

not abuse its discretion by ruling that the 2000 armed robbery was

relevant to show that Randolph committed the armed robbery in this

case with the same intent. See Olds v. State, 299 Ga. 65, 72 (2) (786

SE2d 633 (2016) (“[E]vidence that an accused committed an

intentional act generally is relevant to show . . . that the same

defendant committed a similar act with the same sort of intent[.]”).

See also Booth v. State, 301 Ga. 678, 683 (3) (804 SE2d 104) (2017)

(“[W]e may consider whether the other acts were relevant to the

issue of intent on any of [the charged] offenses.”).

     And “in evaluating the probative value of other-acts evidence

offered to prove intent, we consider the overall similarity between

the other acts and the charged crimes, the other act’s temporal

remoteness, and the prosecutorial need for the evidence.” Thomas v.

State, 314 Ga. 681, 684 (1) (a) (878 SE2d 493) (2022). Randolph

focuses on the alleged dissimilarities between the 2000 armed

                                  14
robbery and the armed robbery in this case to argue that the

probative value of the other-acts evidence was substantially

outweighed by its unfair prejudice. However, in both incidents

Randolph robbed a business at night by vaulting over the counter to

confront the employee with a small handgun and asking about a

safe. And the two events occurred only three days apart. These

similarities and temporal proximity between the two robberies

demonstrate that the probative value of the 2000 armed robbery

evidence to prove Randolph’s intent to commit the armed robbery in

this case was significant. See, e.g., Hood, 309 Ga. at 501 (2) (evidence

of other robbery was probative of defendant’s intent to participate in

charged crimes of felony murder predicated on armed robbery,

aggravated assault, and related crimes because of, inter alia,

similarities between the incidents, which occurred less than four

months apart from one another); Fleming v. State, 306 Ga. 240, 248

(3) (b) (830 SE2d 129) (2019) (the other-acts evidence had a high

probative value because, inter alia, the other act had significant

similarities and occurred within less than one year of the charged

                                  15
crimes).

     Although the evidence of the 2000 armed robbery was certainly

prejudicial to Randolph, its prejudicial value was fairly low, given

that no one was physically harmed in the course of the robbery, and

moreover, Rule 403 requires the balancing of the probative value of

the evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice. “Rule 403’s

exclusionary force is meant to be applied sparingly – primarily when

the other-acts evidence has scant or cumulative probative force,

dragged in by the heels for the sake of its prejudicial effect.”

Hounkpatin v. State, 313 Ga. 789, 796 (2) (a) (873 SE2d 201) (2022)

(citation and punctuation omitted). Given the probative value of the

other-acts evidence here weighed against the relatively low danger

of unfair prejudice, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in

admitting evidence of the 2000 armed robbery. See id.       Having

determined that the evidence was admissible as to intent, we need

not examine whether it was also admissible as to motive, plan, or

modus operandi. See Bradshaw v. State, 296 Ga. 650, 657 (3) n.5

                                16
(769 SE2d 892) (2015). 8

     (b) On appeal, the State concedes that the 2011 home burglary

should not have been admitted under Rule 404 (b). Assuming

without deciding that the trial court abused its discretion in

admitting evidence of the 2011 home burglary, this evidentiary error

warrants reversal only if it was harmful. See Morrell v. State, 313

Ga. 247, 261 (2) (c) (869 SE2d 447) (2022) (“It is fundamental that

harm as well as error must be shown for reversal.”). “The test for

determining nonconstitutional harmless error is whether it is highly

probable that the error did not contribute to the verdict.” Thomas,

314 Ga. at 686 (1) (c) (citation omitted). In making this

determination, “we review the record de novo, and we weigh the

evidence as we would expect reasonable jurors to have done so as

opposed to viewing it all in the light most favorable to the jury’s

verdict.” Id. (citation omitted).

     8  We note also that Randolph has not challenged the trial court’s
instruction regarding the purposes for which the other-acts evidence could be
considered.

                                     17
      Here, several witnesses gave relatively brief testimony about

the incident that was not especially prejudicial, given that, again,

no one was physically harmed in the course of the burglary, 9 and the

State made no mention of it during closing argument. 10 See Stafford

v. State, 312 Ga. 811, 817 (2) (b) (865 SE2d 116) (2021) (any error in

admission of Rule 404 (b) evidence was harmless in part because the

State did not mention or rely on the evidence in closing argument);

Taylor v. State, 306 Ga. 277, 283 (2) (830 SE2d 90) (2019) (any error

in admitting Rule 404 (b) evidence was harmless where the State

spent a minimal amount of time eliciting evidence concerning the

incident and made no mention of it during its closing argument). In

addition, the other evidence in this case – including Brown’s

testimony that Randolph was the shooter, the presence of

      9 The homeowner did not identify Randolph, but testified that he had not

given him permission to enter his home. Two witnesses testified as to their
collection and analysis of the fingerprints found in the home that matched
Randolph’s. A final witness briefly testified regarding the warrant for
Randolph’s arrest, which remained open.
       10 Although Randolph argues that the jury was told that he had not been

arrested or punished in connection with the burglary, the jury was also told
that the arrest warrant was still active, meaning that he could still face
punishment in South Carolina.
                                     18
Randolph’s fingerprint at the scene, and the properly admitted 2000

armed robbery evidence – was strong. See Priester v. State, 316 Ga.

133, 137 (2) (886 SE2d 805) (2023) (erroneously admitted Rule 404

(b) evidence not harmful where the properly admitted evidence

against the defendant was strong).

     The record also shows that the trial court twice instructed the

jury that it could only consider the other-acts evidence for the

limited Rule 404 (b) purposes; that it could not conclude from the

evidence that Randolph had a propensity to commit crimes; and that

Randolph was on trial only for the charges listed in the indictment.

Thus, Randolph cannot show that it is highly probable that any error

in admitting the 2011 home burglary evidence contributed to the

jury’s verdict, and this enumeration of error fails. See Pritchett v.

State, 314 Ga. 767, 780 (2) (c) (879 SE2d 436) (2022) (concluding

erroneous admission of other-acts evidence was harmless in part

because, in considering whether the admission of other-acts

evidence was harmless, “we presume that the jury followed [the trial

court’s] instructions and did not use the other-acts evidence

                                 19
improperly to support that [Appellant] had a propensity towards

violence”).

     Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.

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