Andra Easter v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJune 25, 2014
DocketA14A0358
StatusPublished

This text of Andra Easter v. State (Andra Easter v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Andra Easter v. State, (Ga. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

THIRD DIVISION BARNES, P. J., BOGGS and BRANCH, JJ.

NOTICE: Motions for reconsideration must be physically received in our clerk’s office within ten days of the date of decision to be deemed timely filed. http://www.gaappeals.us/rules/

June 25, 2014

In the Court of Appeals of Georgia A14A0358. EASTER v. THE STATE.

B RANCH, Judge.

Andra Easter was tried by a Richmond County jury and found guilty of one

count of burglary 1 and one count of aggravated assault. 2 He now appeals from the

denial of his motion for a new trial, arguing that the trial court’s jury charge violated

his due process rights by allowing the jury to convict him of committing both burglary

and aggravated assault by a method not alleged in the indictment. Easter further

contends that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that it should first consider

whether Easter was guilty of burglary before considering the lesser included offense

of criminal trespass. For reasons explained below, we reverse the trial court’s denial

1 OCGA § 16-7-1 (a). 2 OCGA § 16-5-21 (a) (2). of Easter’s motion for a new trial as to the charge of aggravated assault, but affirm the

denial of that motion as to the charge of burglary.

“On appeal from a criminal conviction, the defendant is no longer entitled to

a presumption of innocence and we therefore construe the evidence in the light most

favorable to the jury’s guilty verdict.” Marriott v. State, 320 Ga. App. 58 (739 SE2d

68) (2013) (citation omitted). So viewed, the record shows that Easter’s victim was

his former girlfriend, DeShawn Coatney. Easter had lived with Coatney at her

residence for approximately 18 months before the couple broke up in January 2006.

Evidence of prior difficulties between the couple was introduced at trial and showed

that after Easter moved out of Coatney’s residence, Coatney had to call police several

times because of Easter’s harassing and sometimes violent behavior. According to

Coatney, during the approximately six weeks between the end of the couple’s

romantic relationship and the incident at issue, she called police to her home on three

or four occasions because Easter had appeared at her residence uninvited and refused

to leave. Additionally, because Easter was consistently attempting to gain entrance to

the house, Coatney had to change the locks on her residence several times in the span

of a few weeks. An officer with the Richmond County Sheriff’s Department testified

that on February 6, 2006, he responded to a call regarding a domestic dispute at

2 Coatney’s residence. Coatney explained to the officer that Easter had been coming to

her house repeatedly and trying to gain entrance and that on the night in question he

had broken the screen door. The officer observed that the door had been damaged and

the handle broken off. Another local police officer testified that on February 17, 2006,

he responded to a call placed by Coatney regarding a traffic incident. Coatney

reported that Easter had followed her home from work, rammed her car with his, and

then attempted to break her car window with a crowbar. The officer noted damage to

the rear bumper of Coatney’s car and to one of the car’s headlights and also observed

that the passenger side mirror appeared to have been “knocked off” with an “object.”

On the same night as the traffic incident, someone had broken a front window

on Coatney’s house while she was at work. Before she left for work the following

evening, Coatney rearranged the curtains on the broken window to cover the break.

Coatney returned from work in the early morning hours of February 19 and upon

entering her house, noticed that the curtains on the broken front window had been

disturbed. Afraid that Easter might be in the house, Coatney retrieved a gun she kept

hidden on top of her china cabinet and began a room-to-room search of the residence.

After approximately 10 minutes of searching, Coatney found Easter hiding under a

bed in one of the home’s three bedrooms. When Easter came out from under the bed,

3 Coatney saw that he was wearing what she described as “rubber gloves” and holding

a crowbar. Coatney then began to back out of the room and Easter began moving

towards her, holding the crowbar in an upright position. When Coatney asked what

he was doing, Easter did not reply but instead simply continued walking towards

Coatney. Fearing that Easter was about to attack her, Coatney fired two shots in his

direction. A wounded Easter then fled the residence and Coatney called the police.

After speaking with Coatney, officers began searching a wooded area near the

residence for Easter, who eventually surrendered to police and was later charged with

aggravated assault and burglary.

Easter testified in his own defense and admitted that he had entered Coatney’s

home on the night in question through the broken front window. Easter explained,

however, that he had gone to the home because he had learned it had been broken into

the night before, he had property at the residence, and he feared the intruders would

return to burglarize the house.3 Sometime after he entered the residence, Easter heard

a noise and then retrieved the crowbar from his car to use for his own protection. After

he had “secured the house,” Easter decided to stay until Coatney returned from work

3 Coatney testified that Easter did not have any belongings at her house on the night in question.

4 to help protect both Coatney and the property. Easter decided to wait in a bedroom,

however, so that Coatney would not be alarmed by him when she came through the

front door. And once Coatney returned from work, Easter decided to wait for her to

discover him in the bedroom, rather than coming out and startling her. According to

Easter, when Coatney confronted him with the gun, Easter told her that he was not

there to hurt her, but instead wanted to talk “like two mature adults, to sit down and

talk.” Easter denied that he had any intent to harm Coatney that night, explaining that

he loved her too much to hurt her.

At the charge conference following the close of the evidence, the trial judge

agreed to charge the jury on criminal trespass as a lesser included offense of burglary.

After extensive discussion with counsel concerning the verdict form, the parties

agreed that burglary would appear before criminal trespass on that form and that the

trial court would tell the jury to consider criminal trespass only if it found Easter not

guilty of burglary. Thus the trial court charged the jury: “If you find that [Easter] is

not guilty of the offense of burglary, you may consider a lesser offense of criminal

trespass.” The trial court subsequently gave the jury a sequential charge, telling the

jury that it should first consider Easter’s guilt as to the offense of burglary, and that

5 it should consider the crime of criminal trespass only if it found Easter not guilty of

burglary.

When charging the jury on both burglary and aggravated assault, the trial court

charged the relevant code sections in their entirety. Thus, the jury was instructed that

a person commits burglary “when, without authority, that person enters or remains in

any . . .

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Bluebook (online)
Andra Easter v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/andra-easter-v-state-gactapp-2014.