Court Opinion

ID: 9372371
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-21 14:02:38.0506+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:34.407393
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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   official text of the opinion.

      In the Supreme Court of Georgia

                                                 Decided: February 21, 2023

                       S22A0893. EVANS v. THE STATE.

      BOGGS, Chief Justice.

      Appellant Jonathan Tavarus Evans challenges his convictions

for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting

death of Jamirus Wright and the non-fatal shooting of Brandon

Martin. Appellant’s only claim on appeal is that he was denied

constitutionally effective assistance of counsel at trial due to his

attorney’s failure to introduce into evidence footage from the initial

responding officers’ body cameras containing statements by them

that he claims would have lent support to his sole defense of

justification. However, Appellant has not shown that his trial

counsel’s failure to introduce such evidence was objectively

unreasonable. Thus, he has failed to show that his counsel’s

performance was constitutionally deficient, which is fatal to his
claim. Accordingly, we affirm. 1

      1.    The evidence at trial showed the following. On Friday

night, April 27, 2018, Martin visited Wright at Wright’s mother’s

apartment in Augusta. The two men sat for hours on her patio

drinking beers and talking about sports. At some point, their friend

Angela Brooks, who lived in an adjacent building, stopped by.

Wright and Martin eventually ran out of beer, and at around 3:00

a.m. on the morning of Saturday, April 28, 2018, Wright, Martin,

and Brooks walked from the apartment complex to a nearby

convenience store. The trip took between five and ten minutes.

      1 Wright and Martin were shot in the early morning hours of Saturday,
April 28, 2018. On July 10, 2018, a Richmond County grand jury indicted
Appellant for malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault for shooting
Martin, two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony,
and possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. At a trial from March 3 to
6, 2020, the jury found Appellant guilty of all charges except for the marijuana
possession count. The trial court sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison
without the possibility of parole for malice murder and a total of 30 years
consecutive for aggravated assault and the two firearm-possession convictions;
the felony murder count was vacated by operation of law. On March 27, 2020,
Appellant filed a motion for new trial, which he amended with new counsel on
October 22, 2020, and again on May 13, 2021. The trial court held an
evidentiary hearing on June 28, 2021, and entered an order denying the motion
on January 14, 2022. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal, and the case
was docketed in this Court to the August 2022 term. The case was orally
argued on November 8, 2022.
                                       2
Surveillance footage from the convenience store showed Martin

entering the convenience store at 3:07 a.m.; Wright and Brooks

stayed outside and smoked a cigarette. Martin bought a 12-pack of

beer and exited the store at 3:09 a.m. The three friends then walked

back to the apartment complex, where Brooks went home while

Wright and Martin resumed their positions sitting on Wright’s

mother’s patio.

     Appellant, who used to live in the same apartment complex as

Wright’s mother and Brooks, had previously gotten into a physical

altercation with Wright and Martin, and he spotted Martin inside

the convenience store. At 3:10 a.m., approximately one minute after

Martin exited the store, Appellant did the same. Appellant looked in

the direction that Martin went before abruptly turning around and

going back inside the store. He emerged from the store just 30

seconds later with a pair of clear latex gloves in his hand and got

into the driver’s seat of a black 2017 Honda Civic that was parked

in front of the store. Appellant waited in the parked car for several

minutes, and at 3:16 a.m., he drove to the apartment complex.

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     Martin testified that he saw Evans drive to a nearby building

in the apartment complex and get out of his car. According to

Martin, Evans then got back in his car, drove by the patio on which

he and Wright were sitting, and parked his car in front of Wright’s

mother’s apartment. Martin testified that Evans got out of his car,

and started firing at Martin and Wright. Several rounds struck the

iron railing in front of the patio and fragmented into shrapnel that

ricocheted in all directions. Wright sustained multiple lacerations

from the metal shrapnel, including one jacket fragment that sliced

through the right side of his throat and severed his carotid artery,

killing him. Martin was struck in the back of the leg, between his

buttocks and the back of his knee, but he was able to crawl inside

the apartment and call 911. Martin was in so much pain that he

could not effectively communicate with the 911 operator, so he

handed the phone to Wright’s mother, who was awakened by the

gunfire and finished the call.

     Later that same day, officers from the Richmond County

Sheriff’s Office arrested Appellant at his girlfriend’s apartment after

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using the convenience store surveillance footage to determine the

license plate number of the car that Appellant had been driving.

Appellant was taken into custody, where he was advised of his rights

under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (86 SCt 1602, 16 LE2d 694)

(1966), and agreed to speak to law enforcement officers after signing

a written waiver of his rights. Investigator Lucas Grant, the lead

investigator, interviewed Appellant, and a video recording of the

interview was later played for the jury. In the interview, Appellant

said that Wright and Martin saw him parked at the apartment

complex and “talked s**t” to him and that Wright pointed a gun at

him and said that he was going to shoot Appellant’s “b**ch a**.”

Appellant admitted that Wright did not fire any shots at him but

said that he was scared for his life and that he fired four shots from

his rifle at Wright and Martin.

     Although law enforcement officials found a black cell phone

that belonged to Wright on the patio of the apartment, they found

no gun or bullets on the patio or inside the apartment, and no

evidence that any shots had been fired from those locations. Further,

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Martin testified that neither he nor Wright had a firearm, and

Wright’s mother testified that her son and Martin had never owned

firearms. Brooks also testified that she did not see Martin with a

gun that night and that Martin and Wright have “never been the

type to carry a weapon.” Law enforcement officials recovered four

bullet casings from the location from which Appellant fired at

Wright and Martin, which was about 100 feet in front of Wright’s

mother’s apartment. Forensic evidence showed that those casings

were fired from Appellant’s SKS rifle, which a law enforcement

official recovered from one of Appellant’s friends. At trial, the jury

was instructed on the law of justification and self-defense

     2.   Appellant’s sole claim on appeal is that he was denied

constitutionally effective assistance of counsel at trial. We disagree.

     (a) As background, in an amended motion for new trial,

Appellant contended that trial counsel was constitutionally

ineffective by failing to present evidence of audio and video

recordings made by the initial responding officers’ body cameras,

which, according to Appellant, would have supported his claim of

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self-defense.

     At the motion for new trial hearing, Appellant introduced the

body-camera recordings of several of the officers. The recordings

were made before law enforcement officials became aware of

Appellant’s role in the shooting and before evidence was discovered

showing that Appellant had fired four shots toward Wright and

Martin while standing about 100 feet away from the patio. In the

recordings, the officers said that the bullets were not fired “from . . .

outside” the apartment, but instead “came from the inside.” One

officer said “[a]ll that sh*t happened inside,” and another said, “I

think so too.” They also expressed concern that Martin “knows

something and isn’t saying anything”; that “[m]aybe [Martin and

Wright] shot each other”; and that Wright’s mother “had plenty of

time to hide the guns.”

     At the motion for new trial hearing, trial counsel testified that

the defense at trial was that Wright and Martin “became verbally

abusive” to Appellant and that Appellant thought that “one of the

individuals was holding up what [Appellant] thought was a gun,”

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prompting Appellant to fire in self-defense. Counsel added that he

did not need any particular evidence to be able to argue to the jury

that there was time, before law enforcement officials arrived at the

scene, for someone in the apartment to hide a gun, and that

“anybody can figure that out.” Trial counsel explained that because

a black cell phone was found on the patio, he was able to present the

defense that Appellant was justified in shooting because he had been

threatened and because he either saw a firearm that had been

hidden after the shooting or he saw an object that it was reasonable

for him to think was a firearm. Furthermore, counsel testified that

the body-camera recordings were made when the officers had just

arrived at the scene and were “kind of spit-balling possibilities” and

that he “can’t ask somebody, well, did this ever cross your mind,”

adding that all he could “deal with is what the evidence is.” He also

explained that the officers’ initial speculation that there may have

shots fired from inside the apartment would not have been helpful

to the defense because there was no forensic evidence that shots

were fired from inside the apartment; because, in his statement,

                                  8
Appellant said that Wright and Martin were outside of the

apartment on the patio and did not fire shots at him; because the

evidence at trial showed, consistent with Evans’s statement, that

Wright and Martin were on the patio; and because, given the

darkness that night and the fact that Appellant was located about

100 feet from the apartment and at a lower elevation than the

apartment, someone inside the apartment “would have never known

that [Appellant] was even out there.” Further, counsel stated that

presenting evidence of the body-camera recordings would not “have

made a lot of sense given the entirety of the evidence” and did not

“really . . . fit in with what our defense had to be.” In denying

Appellant’s motion for new trial, the trial court concluded that trial

counsel’s decision not to introduce the evidence was a strategic one

and did not constitute constitutionally deficient performance.

     On   appeal,   Appellant    argues   that   trial   counsel   was

constitutionally ineffective in failing to present evidence of the

officers’ observations that shots were possibly fired from inside the

apartment toward Appellant’s location.

                                  9
      (b) To establish that his trial counsel was constitutionally

ineffective, Appellant was required to prove both deficient

performance by counsel and resulting prejudice. See Strickland v.

Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (104 SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984).

To show that his lawyer’s performance was deficient, Appellant had

to demonstrate that the lawyer performed his duties in an

objectively unreasonable way, considering all the circumstances and

in the light of prevailing professional norms. See id. at 687-688. The

law recognizes a “strong presumption” that counsel performed

reasonably, and the defendant bears the burden of overcoming this

presumption. See Strickland, 466 U.S. at 689. To carry this burden,

Appellant must show that “no reasonable lawyer would have done

what his lawyer did, or would have failed to do what his lawyer did

not.” Washington v. State, 313 Ga. 771, 773 (873 SE2d 132) (2022)

(cleaned up). Even when a defendant has proved that his counsel’s

performance was deficient, he also must prove resulting prejudice

by showing “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s

unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been

                                 10
different.” Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694. Moreover, “there is no reason

for a court deciding an ineffective assistance claim . . . to address

both components of the inquiry if the defendant makes an

insufficient showing on one.” Id. at 697.

     (c) Based on this record, Appellant has failed to prove that trial

counsel’s performance was deficient. To begin, contrary to

Appellant’s assertion, the body-camera recordings do not indicate

that the responding officers thought that shots were fired from

inside the apartment toward Appellant’s location some 100 feet

away. They indicate only that the officers thought that the shots

that hit Wright and Martin may have been fired from inside the

apartment and that Wright and Martin may have been shooting at

each other. Moreover, an attorney’s decisions “as to what witnesses

and other evidence to present are a matter of trial strategy,” see

Horton v. State, 310 Ga. 310, 328 (849 SE2d 382) (2020) (cleaned

up), and such decisions will form the basis for an ineffectiveness

claim “only if they were so patently unreasonable that no competent

attorney would have followed such a course.” Washington, 313 Ga.

                                  11
at 773 (cleaned up). Here, the record shows that trial counsel made

a strategic choice to establish the facts needed to support Appellant’s

self-defense claim by relying on Appellant’s statement that,

although the victims did not shoot toward him, Appellant

nevertheless acted in self-defense based on the victims’ verbal threat

to him and Appellant’s perception that Wright was pointing a gun

at him. Moreover, the defense as presented by counsel was

consistent with the forensic evidence that no shots were fired from

inside the apartment, with witnesses’ testimony that Martin and

Wright were unarmed, and with Appellant’s own statement that the

victims did not fire at him. On the other hand, the strategy that

Appellant now contends that counsel should have adopted would

have been inconsistent not only with the forensic evidence and

witness testimony but also with Appellant’s own statement. Under

these circumstances, Appellant has failed to overcome the strong

presumption that counsel’s performance was objectively reasonable.

See Davis v. State, ___ Ga. ___ (___ SE2d ___) (2022 WL 17813444,

at *8) (Dec. 20, 2022) (holding that the defendant had failed to

                                  12
overcome the strong presumption that trial counsel performed

reasonably where the record showed that counsel made a strategic

choice to present the defendant’s self-defense claim through cross-

examination of a witness and not by calling an expert witness to

testify); Birdow v. State, 305 Ga. 48, 49, 52-53 (823 SE2d 736) (2019)

(holding that trial counsel did not perform deficiently in electing not

to call a defense expert to help establish the defendant’s claim of

self-defense and instead relying on cross-examination of a State’s

witness to support that claim, particularly because the expert’s

testimony would have contradicted a part of the defendant’s

statement to law enforcement officers that formed the basis for his

self-defense claim). Accordingly, Appellant’s     claim of ineffective

assistance fails.

     Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.

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