Benjamin v. State

743 S.E.2d 566, 322 Ga. App. 8, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1651, 2013 WL 2249528, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 436
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMay 23, 2013
DocketA13A0770
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 743 S.E.2d 566 (Benjamin 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
Benjamin v. State, 743 S.E.2d 566, 322 Ga. App. 8, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1651, 2013 WL 2249528, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 436 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Branch, Judge.

James Troy Benjamin was tried and convicted of rape and kidnapping with bodily injury and sentenced to two concurrent life sentences. Following the denial of his motion for new trial, Benjamin appeals, contending that trial counsel was ineffective and that the trial court failed to properly answer a question from the jury.

Construed in favor of the guilty verdict, the evidence presented at trial shows that at about 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning July 19, 2008, a man spoke to the 57-year-old female victim and then attacked her, choked her, dragged her behind a house located at 2405 Amsterdam Drive, and raped her. After the assault, the police were called, and the victim gave a detailed description of her assailant to the police that strongly corresponded to the description of Benjamin on his booking report. Moreover, although she did not know the assailant’s name, the victim told the first responding officer that she knew of her assailant and his brothers, and she pointed out where her assailant was staying in the neighborhood, which was 2370 Amsterdam Drive in Richmond County, a three or four minute walk from the site of the attack. On the night of the assault, the officer was unable to get anyone to respond at the identified address. The victim went to the emergency room before morning, and medical evidence supported the fact of rape. Finally, a witness testified that he had seen both Benjamin and the victim that night and saw Benjamin walking toward the victim.

Three days after the assault, the victim told an investigator that her assailant’s name was James Benjamin and that he could be found at the 2370 Amsterdam Drive address. The investigator drove the victim to the location where she identified Benjamin as her assailant from among several men who were sitting outside. The investigator dropped the victim off elsewhere, returned to the location, asked Benjamin to come with him, and took Benjamin in his patrol car to where the victim was waiting. There, while Benjamin was sitting in the patrol car, the victim again identified Benjamin as the assailant. Benjamin had some scrapes on his knees and a scratched cheek at the time. The investigation did not produce any DNA, fingerprint or other [9]*9scientific evidence, however; and Benjamin willingly gave a sample of his own DNA during the investigation. The victim also identified Benjamin at trial as the person who attacked and raped her.

Benjamin testified in his own defense and denied attacking and raping the victim. He also testified that his brother lives at 2370 Amsterdam Drive and that although he generally stayed at his brother’s home on weekends, he slept at his mother’s house on Friday night, July 18, 2008, and did not leave until 11:30 a.m. Saturday. He only went to his brother’s house that Saturday night.

1. Benjamin contends his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call his mother as an alibi witness. Under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (104 SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984), the appellant “must prove both that his trial counsel’s performance was deficient and that there is a reasonable probability that the trial result would have been different if not for the deficient performance.” (Citation omitted.) White v. State, 283 Ga. 566, 569 (4) (662 SE2d 131) (2008). On claims of ineffective assistance of counsel, we will uphold a trial court’s findings of fact unless they are clearly erroneous but review legal conclusions de novo. Hunter v. State, 281 Ga. 526, 528 (2) (a) (640 SE2d 271) (2007); Cherry v. State, 283 Ga. App. 700 (1) (642 SE2d 369) (2007).

The relevant facts show that at the beginning of the trial, with the jury present, the court swore in all potential witnesses who happened to be present. Benjamin’s mother, who was present, did not stand as a witness. A bench conference ensued, during which the State explained “it doesn’t look like the defense is going to call the defendant’s mother. . . . It’s possible that I will call her because of a conversation I have had with her, so I would ask her to also be invoked [sic] and have to step outside too.” The bench conference ended, and the court then addressed Benjamin’s mother in the presence of the jury: “I think that you may be a witness in the case they’ve decided. I’m going to ask you to raise your right hand”; whereupon, she was given the oath for witnesses. Opening statements were not transcribed.

The State then presented its case-in-chief (but did not call Benjamin’s mother), following which Benjamin chose to testify in his own defense. On direct, he testified that he spent Friday night July 18, 2008, at his mother’s house, that he slept there, and that he did not leave until 11:30 Saturday morning. On cross-examination, the State forced Benjamin to concede that his mother was present in the courthouse and available to testify. Following Benjamin’s testimony, Benjamin’s trial counsel did not call his mother (or anyone else) as a witness; rather, the defense rested. Although closing argument was not transcribed, during colloquy at trial, the State explained to the [10]*10court that during closing argument it argued that the defense had the power and ability to call material witnesses to testify.

The case was submitted to the jury, and, during the deliberations, the jury submitted a question to the court: “Why doesn’t Benjamin’s mother or any other witnesses give a statement to testify in his behalf?” In response, the trial court further instructed the jury that all the evidence had been presented and all the witnesses had testified. In response to the court asking for objections to the instruction, Benjamin’s counsel then asked the court to re-instruct the jury on the burden of proof, specifically that the defendant does not have any burden to present any evidence. The court declined to do so. At the sentencing hearing that immediately followed the trial, Benjamin’s mother spoke in support of her son and said, “Your Honor, I don’t think my child did that because he was at my house; he couldn’t have did it.” Benjamin’s mother did not testify at the hearing on the motion for new trial.

Remembering that there is a “strong presumption that counsel’s performance fell within the broad range of professional conduct,” Griffin v. State, 292 Ga. 321, 325 (6) (a) (737 SE2d 682) (2013), we hold that counsel’s performance was not deficient and that even if it was, Benjamin could show no harm.

(a) At the hearing on the motion for new trial, trial counsel testified that her theory of the case was misidentification, i.e., that Benjamin was not involved in the crime. Trial counsel admitted that when the trial court gave Benjamin’s mother the oath at the beginning of trial it could have led the jurors to expect that she would be called as a witness. But trial counsel testified that although she could not remember it, she had a reason for not calling Benjamin’s mother as a witness: “if I didn’t feel that her testimony was significant to the facts of the case or to any of the issues ... if she didn’t have any information to provide with relation to an identification, I wouldn’t have called her.” Trial counsel added, “I just know that there was a reason that I didn’t call her, but don’t remember what that reason was. But I didn’t call her for a reason.”

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Bluebook (online)
743 S.E.2d 566, 322 Ga. App. 8, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1651, 2013 WL 2249528, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 436, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benjamin-v-state-gactapp-2013.