Court Opinion

ID: 9368898
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-07 14:02:22.975404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:11.554916
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: February 7, 2023

                         S22A0970. MCCOY v. THE STATE.

       LAGRUA, Justice.

       Appellant Thomas McCoy was convicted of felony murder and

other crimes in connection with the attempted burglary and

shooting death of Theodore Barber, as well as theft by receiving of

Tony Smith’s SUV. 1 On appeal, Appellant contends in his sole

       1 The crimes occurred on December 2, 2003. On February 17, 2004,
Appellant and co-defendant Michael Favors were indicted by a Fulton County
grand jury for malice murder (count one), felony murder based on aggravated
assault (count two), felony murder based on burglary (count three), aggravated
assault with a deadly weapon (count four), burglary (count five), theft by
receiving stolen property (count six), and two counts of possession of a firearm
during the commission of a felony (counts seven and eight). Favors was also
indicted for aggravated assault on a peace officer. Appellant and Favors were
jointly tried in October 2005 and convicted on all counts. In October 2009,
Appellant and Favors moved for a new trial, which the trial court granted. The
new trial took place from April 23 through 27, 2012, and the jury found
Appellant and Favors guilty on all counts. Appellant and Favors filed timely
motions for new trial. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the
motions, and Appellant and Favors filed timely notices of appeal. In March
2015, this Court issued an opinion in Favors’s direct appeal, see Favors v.
State, 296 Ga. 842 (770 SE2d 855) (2015), affirming in part and vacating in
part the judgment below and remanding for resentencing due to merger errors.
enumeration of error that the evidence was legally insufficient to

support his convictions. For the reasons explained below, we see no

error and affirm.

      Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence

presented at trial showed that, on December 2, 2003, Barber called

911 at 11:43 a.m. to report that he believed someone was about to

break into his apartment. On the 911 recording, Barber stated that

two young men were “banging” on doors and trying to break into

apartments in his building. He also stated that the men arrived in a

Following the issuance of that opinion, on November 2, 2015, the trial court,
which had originally sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison, plus a
consecutive five years, re-sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison for malice
murder (count one), ten years for burglary (count five) to run concurrently with
count one, five years for theft by receiving stolen property (count six) to run
consecutively to count one, and five years on probation for each count of firearm
possession (counts seven and eight). Due to the trial court’s delay in completing
the record, Appellant’s appeal was not docketed in this Court until August 30,
2017. On October 3, 2017, noting that Appellant had failed to file a brief in this
case, the Court issued an order directing Appellant’s counsel to file a brief on
Appellant’s behalf by October 13, 2017. On December 11, 2017, having yet to
receive a filing from Appellant, this Court struck the case from the docket and
remanded it to the trial court to determine “whether Appellant’s failure to file
a timely appellate brief was the result of his counsel’s ineffective assistance
and, if so, whether new counsel should be appointed to represent Appellant.”
On May 8, 2018, Appellant’s new counsel entered an appearance. On March
30, 2022, the trial court ordered the Fulton County clerk to transmit the record
to this Court, and the appeal was re-docketed to this Court’s August 2022 term.
                                        2
“burgundy Ford Explorer.” Barber explained to the 911 operator

that he was armed and prepared to defend himself. The 911 operator

attempted to calm Barber down and informed him that she had

dispatched units to his location. Within moments, Barber told the

911 operator that the men were “kicking the door in,” and loud thuds

could be heard on the 911 recording before gunshots were fired. The

911 operator then called out to Barber, who did not respond.

     In response to Barber’s 911 call, Officer Heather Davis of the

Fulton County Police Department was dispatched to Barber’s

location. Officer Davis parked her patrol vehicle, and as she began

to approach the apartment building on foot, she heard “tires

squealing” and saw a burgundy Ford Expedition SUV backing out of

a parking spot. The driver of the SUV drove toward the apartment

complex exit, near where Officer Davis was standing. She tried to

stop the SUV, but the driver swerved the car towards her, causing

her to jump out of the way. Officer Vernal Sutherland was also

dispatched to the scene and arrived just in time to see the SUV

“barrel[ling] out” of the complex. Officer Sutherland pursued the

                                 3
SUV until the driver “bailed out” of the moving vehicle and fled on

foot. Officer Sutherland gave chase, caught the driver, and placed

him under arrest. The driver of the SUV was later identified as

Appellant’s co-defendant, Michael Favors.

     While Officer Sutherland chased Favors on foot, Officer Davis

returned to the apartment building and located the specific

apartment from which the 911 call originated. She noticed that the

door had been kicked in and the doorframe had been broken. Once

inside the apartment, she observed a man—later identified as

Barber—lying on the floor, bleeding and unresponsive. The medical

examiner determined that Barber died from a gunshot wound to the

chest. A bullet was extracted from Barber’s chest, which was

confirmed by the ballistics expert to be a .38-caliber bullet. A .40-

caliber bullet and shell casing were also found at the scene,

indicating that two separate guns were fired in Barber’s home.2 The

ballistics expert concluded that the .38-caliber bullet that caused

     2  Neither the .38-caliber murder weapon nor the .40-caliber gun were
ever found. At the scene, detectives discovered a 16-gauge shotgun lying next
to Barber’s body that had not been fired.
                                     4
Barber’s death was fired from a revolver, whereas the .40-caliber

shell casing and bullet were fired by a Glock handgun.

     A detective impounded the burgundy SUV and, after running

an impound report, determined that the vehicle had been reported

stolen. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the vehicle and

dusted for fingerprints. Testimony from crime scene technicians at

trial revealed that latent fingerprints found on the passenger side of

the SUV matched Favors’s fingerprints, and a latent fingerprint

pulled from a candy bar wrapper found under the driver’s seat of the

SUV matched the known prints of Appellant.

     Smith, the owner of the stolen SUV, testified that, on

November 30, 2003—two days before Barber was killed—two men

approached him with guns drawn while he was pumping gas and

stole his 1996 burgundy Ford Expedition and his cell phone. Smith

testified that, after his SUV and phone were taken from him, he

changed the greeting on his cell phone voicemail so that anyone who

tried to call him would know that the phone had been stolen.

                                  5
     At trial, 14-year-old Taja Glenn—who was dating Appellant––

and 16-year-old Lakeesha Reese testified that, a day or two before

the shooting on December 2, Appellant and Favors picked up the

girls from Glenn’s house in a burgundy SUV. Glenn testified that

Appellant told her that he and Favors had stolen the SUV, and

Reese testified that she found a cell phone in the back seat of the

SUV and listened to the outgoing voicemail greeting, which

“indicate[d] that the [SUV] had been stolen.” Both girls testified

that Appellant and Favors took them to a hotel room, where they

watched television and played video games. Reese remembered

seeing two guns “l[y]ing around” the hotel room, and Glenn testified

that she saw both Favors and Appellant with guns. Glenn

specifically remembered that Appellant’s gun was a silver “cowboy”

gun that “had a pullout where you put the bullets in” and that

Favors’s gun was black. Glenn also testified that she overheard a

conversation between Appellant and Favors that “they were going

to go hit a lick,” which she knew was slang for robbing someone, and

                                 6
that “the person was not supposed to be there.” Reese testified that

she did not hear anyone talk about “hit[ting] a lick.”

     Appellant told Glenn that, if for some reason he and Favors

were not at the hotel the next morning, the girls should pack up the

PlayStation, and Appellant’s mother would come pick them up.

When the girls woke up the next morning, Favors and Appellant

were not in the hotel room, and Glenn believed they left the hotel in

the burgundy SUV. Appellant’s mother picked up the girls from the

hotel and took them to a MARTA train station. Glenn testified that,

at some point after Appellant’s mother picked them up, Appellant

called her and said that “the lick went bad,” “the man was home,”

“the man had a gun,” and “the man got shot.”

     For reasons not established by the record, on the evening of

December 2, Glenn and Reese were taken by their mothers to the

DeKalb County Police Department. Detective Wade Yates––the lead

detective with the Fulton County Police Department investigating

Barber’s death––was notified by the DeKalb County Police

Department that the girls had information potentially related to his

                                  7
investigation. Detective Yates then requested that Detective

Orlando Concepción, with the DeKalb County Police Department,

record interviews with the two girls. 3 Detective Yates obtained a

warrant for Appellant’s arrest, and on or around December 4,

Appellant turned himself in to the Fulton County Police

Department.

     1. Appellant contends that the evidence presented at trial was

insufficient to support his convictions. Specifically, Appellant argues

that (a) the testimony of Joseph Sager, a crime scene technician, was

based on hearsay and cannot support Appellant’s convictions and (b)

the evidence was insufficient to convict him as a party to the crime

under OCGA § 16-2-20.

     When evaluating the sufficiency of evidence as a matter
     of constitutional due process, the proper standard of
     review is whether a rational trier of fact could have found
     the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This
     Court views the evidence in the light most favorable to
     the verdict, with deference to the jury’s assessment of the
     weight and credibility of the evidence.

     3 Portions of Reese’s and Glenn’s statements were admitted at trial for
impeachment purposes.
                                     8
Sams v. State, 314 Ga. 306, 309 (2) (875 SE2d 757) (2022) (citing

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560)

(1979)).

     (a) Appellant contends that the testimony of Sager, the crime

scene technician who identified Appellant’s fingerprint on the candy

wrapper in the SUV, was “non-probative hearsay” and cannot be

considered in determining the sufficiency of evidence. 4 This claim

has no merit.

     At trial, Sager testified that he was a senior crime technician

for nine years and his duties included identifying latent prints,

lifting latent prints, and comparing latent prints to known prints.

The State moved to qualify Sager as “an expert in the area of latent

print identification.” Appellant’s trial counsel did not object, and

Sager was so qualified. Sager testified that he processed the candy

bar wrapper that had been found in the burgundy SUV and lifted a

     4 Under Georgia’s old Evidence Code, which applies in this case because
Appellant was tried in 2012, “‘erroneously-admitted hearsay’ was deemed to
have no probative value and therefore could not be considered in determining
the sufficiency of the evidence.” Dawson v. State, 308 Ga. 613, 616 (842 SE2d
875) (2020) (citation and some punctuation omitted).
                                     9
latent fingerprint. After entering Appellant’s fingerprint card into

evidence without objection, the prosecutor asked, “Did you have the

opportunity to compare the known print of [Appellant] to . . . the

latent print of value that you located on the . . . candy bar wrapper?”

Sager responded, “Yes, I did.” The prosecutor then asked, “Can you

tell us what your results were?” Sager responded, “The results were

that—after comparison, that it was determined that the print

matched the right middle finger of the card.”

     Appellant argues that Sager’s qualification as an expert in the

area of latent print identification, instead of latent print

identification and comparison, as well as his use of the “third

person” in stating “it was determined that the print matched”

compels this Court to conclude that Sager’s testimony was non-

probative hearsay. This argument is unavailing. A careful review of

Sager’s testimony reveals that his testimony was not based on

hearsay, but on his personal knowledge, as evidenced by Sager’s

responses to the questions inquiring into his personal involvement

with the case (e.g., “Can you tell us what your results were?”)

                                  10
(Emphasis supplied.). Consequently, his testimony does not fall

within the definition of hearsay that was applicable at the time of

Appellant’s trial. See former OCGA § 24-3-1 (a) (“Hearsay evidence

is that which does not derive its value solely from the credit of the

witness but rests mainly on the veracity and competency of other

persons.”) (Emphasis supplied.) See also Bell v. State, 294 Ga. 443

(754 SE2d 327) (2014) (holding that a witness’s testimony based on

a fact within his personal knowledge was not hearsay). Thus, Sager’s

testimony was not “non-probative hearsay” and can be considered in

determining the sufficiency of the evidence.

     (b) Appellant also contends that the evidence was insufficient

to convict him as a party to the crime under OCGA § 16-2-20 for the

following reasons: (1) the evidence supporting the jury’s verdicts

primarily came from the conflicting testimony of Reese and Glenn—

e.g., Glenn testified that she overheard Appellant and Favors talking

to each other about “hit[ting] a lick,” but Reese testified that she

never heard any such conversation; (2) his convictions were based

wholly on circumstantial evidence, citing Clyde v. State, 276 Ga. 839,

                                  11
840 (584 SE2d 253) (2003) (since there was “no testimony” that the

defendant intended the alleged crimes, “[a]ll of the State’s evidence

against [defendant] was circumstantial, which requires that the

proved facts shall . . . exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save

that of the guilt of the accused”); and (3) the State did not rule out

the possibility that Favors acted alone or that Appellant attempted

to dissuade Favors from “hit[ting] a lick.” We see no merit in these

contentions.

     A person is a party to a crime if, among other things, he

“directly commits the crime,” “intentionally aids or abets in [its]

commission,” or “intentionally advises, encourages, hires, counsels

or procures another” to commit it. OCGA § 16-2-20 (b). Although

“mere presence at the scene of a crime is not sufficient evidence to

convict one of being party to a crime,” a jury is entitled to infer

criminal intent from a defendant’s “presence, companionship, and

conduct before, during, and after the offense.” Jones v. State, 314 Ga.

214, 231 (3) (875 SE2d 737) (2022) (citation and punctuation

omitted).

                                  12
     Here, there was sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that

Appellant committed the crimes at issue. The evidence showed that

Appellant and Favors were driving around in a stolen SUV two days

before the murder and that they picked up Glenn and Reese in that

same SUV. Appellant’s fingerprints were also discovered in the

stolen SUV on a candy bar wrapper. Appellant and Favors

disappeared from the hotel room where they were staying with

Glenn and Reese after discussing their plans to “hit a lick.” Glenn

testified that she saw Appellant with a silver “cowboy” gun and

Favors with a black gun. Two guns were fired at the scene of

Barber’s death, including the gun that killed Barber. Appellant told

Glenn that he and Favors might not return to the hotel once they

had left, gave instructions for them to pack up their belongings, and

told Glenn and Reese that, if they did not return, his mother would

pick the girls up from the hotel the following day. Appellant then

left and did not return the following day, which was the day Barber

was killed.

     Additionally, while Barber was on the phone with the 911

                                 13
operator moments before his death, he explained that two young men

were attempting to break into his home. Favors was apprehended by

law enforcement officers after fleeing the apartment complex where

the shooting occurred in an SUV that matched the description of the

SUV Barber gave to the 911 operator. And, mere hours after the

shooting, Appellant told Glenn that “the lick went bad,” “the man

was home,” “the man had a gun” and, “the man got shot.”

     Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient as a matter of

constitutional due process to authorize the jury to conclude that

Appellant and Favors committed the crimes together and to convict

Appellant on the basis of his “presence, companionship, and

conduct” with Favors “before, during, and after the offense.” Jones,

314 Ga. at 232 (3) (citation and punctuation omitted).

     Further, a conviction can rest on circumstantial evidence alone

if that evidence “exclude[s] every other reasonable hypothesis save

that of the guilt of the accused,” OCGA § 24-14-6, but “the evidence

need not exclude every conceivable inference or hypothesis—only

those that are reasonable.” Graves v. State, 306 Ga. 485, 487 (1) (831

                                 14
SE2d 747) (2019). The question as to “whether any alternative

hypotheses are reasonable and whether the circumstantial evidence

excludes any such hypotheses” is for the jury to resolve. Id. (citation

and punctuation omitted).

    Even assuming that all of the evidence presented at trial was

circumstantial, the evidence was sufficient as a matter of Georgia

statutory law for a jury to convict Appellant. And “where the jury is

authorized to find that the evidence, though circumstantial, was

sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of the

guilt of the accused,” as they did here, “we will not disturb that

finding unless it is insupportable as a matter of law.” Graves, 306

Ga. at 487 (1). Despite Appellant’s protests regarding the

inconsistency of Reese’s and Glenn’s testimony, “it is axiomatic that

resolving evidentiary conflicts and assessing witness credibility are

within the exclusive province of the jury.” Id. at 553 (1). See also

Carter v. State, 314 Ga. 317, 319-320 (b) (877 SE2d 170) (2022)

(holding that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s guilt

where the testimony of two witnesses conflicted about the

                                  15
defendant’s whereabouts on the day of the murder, noting that “to

the extent that [one witness’s] testimony conflicts with [another’s],

that inconsistency was for the jury to resolve, and the jury was

entitled to disbelieve” either witness’s version of the events).

Moreover, Glenn’s testimony relaying Appellant’s statements to her

about the crimes (e.g., how he and Favors stole the SUV and what

occurred when “the lick went bad”) was sufficient for the jury to find

Appellant guilty of the crimes charged. See OCGA § 24-14-8 (“The

testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a

fact.”). Accordingly, Appellant’s claim fails.

     Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.

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