Bennett v. State

822 S.E.2d 254
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedDecember 10, 2018
DocketS18A1557
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 822 S.E.2d 254 (Bennett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bennett v. State, 822 S.E.2d 254 (Ga. 2018).

Opinion

NAHMIAS, Presiding Justice.

*255Appellant Archie Edward Bennett was convicted of felony murder, arson, and concealing a death in connection with the shooting death of his ex-wife, Shirley Bennett. Appellant contends first that the trial court erred when it granted the State's motion to exclude evidence of drugs found in Shirley's system during her autopsy, and second that his right to be present at trial was violated because the trial transcript does not show that he was present on at least three occasions. We conclude that both contentions are meritless, so we affirm.1

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. In 2002, Appellant and Shirley went through a contentious divorce, after which the property they owned in Blackshear, Georgia was split into two parcels: Appellant lived in a mobile home on one end of the property, and Shirley lived in a house on the other end. Appellant was required to pay Shirley about $1,300 in alimony each month, based on a percentage of his pension, but he fell behind on his payments. By the summer of 2008, Appellant may have owed Shirley as much as $40,000. She and her lawyers pressured Appellant to pay the money due, although he had little income. There was also evidence that Shirley often antagonized Appellant.

At about 1:00 a.m. on Friday, September 5, 2008, Donnie Joyce, Appellant's nephew and neighbor, saw smoke coming from Appellant's mobile home. Joyce went over to the home and noticed that Shirley's truck was parked in front. He began yelling and beating on the doors and walls of the home in an attempt to alert anyone inside. Joyce managed to get one of the doors open, but the smoke prevented him from seeing anything inside. Joyce then called 911 and moved Shirley's truck out of the way to make room for the fire trucks; the keys, along with her purse and cigarettes, had been left on the driver's seat. When the firefighters arrived, Joyce told them that he thought Shirley might be inside the home because her purse was still in her truck. After attacking the flames from the outside, two firefighters were sent into the home to search for people, but they did not find anyone. The firefighters could not get into the back bedroom, however, because the floor had burned away.

When Shirley's family members learned about the fire and were unable to contact her, they urged the fire department to check the mobile home again. The fire chief then returned to the home for a more thorough search and uncovered a burnt body lying in the doorway to the back bedroom where the fire appeared to have originated. Investigators *256from the GBI and the State Fire Marshall's Office were then called to assist with the investigation. They found blood on the carpet underneath the body and the metal remains of a shotgun on the bed. Dental records confirmed that it was Shirley's body. An autopsy revealed that she had been shot in the lower chest with a shotgun. Because there was no evidence of smoke in her throat or lungs, the medical examiner determined that Shirley died from the shooting before the fire started. The fire investigator determined that diesel fuel had been spread throughout the mobile home and that the fire started when someone ignited the fuel near the area where Shirley's body was found.

Around 11:30 a.m. on the day of the fire, Appellant spoke with GBI agents at the scene. He claimed that he had been at a hotel in Brunswick at the time of the fire. He also said that he suspected the burnt body was Shirley's. He told the agents that she had called him earlier in the week to tell him that the lights were on in his mobile home and that it looked like someone had broken in, so he gave her permission to go in and switch off the lights if it happened again while he was away. Appellant told a similar story to his insurance agent when he called to submit a claim for fire damage that morning. But when an insurance adjuster arrived later that afternoon to assess the damage, Appellant told him that he did not know whose burnt body it was.

Five days after the fire, Appellant was interviewed again by GBI agents. This interview was video-recorded, and the State played the recording for the jury at trial. After initially denying again any involvement in the fire or Shirley's death, Appellant told investigators the following story: He had been at the end of his rope financially and decided to commit suicide on Monday, September 1. To protect his family from shame or pain, his plan was to disguise the suicide by staging a break-in of his mobile home, dousing it with diesel fuel, and igniting it at one end before shooting himself with a shotgun at the other end. After purchasing the ammunition, spreading the fuel, and staging the break-in, however, he "chickened out." On Thursday night, he once again attempted to complete the suicide. After he got the shotgun ready, he called Shirley to tell her that she had pushed him to the edge and he was about to kill himself. Shirley came over to the mobile home, and the two had a long argument. Appellant sat on the bed with the shotgun, and Shirley stood in the doorway. After arguing for "two hours or longer," Shirley lunged at him. As he raised the gun in self defense, Shirley hit it, which caused the gun to fire, killing her instantly.

Two days later, an insurance investigator went to the jail to interview Appellant regarding his claim. At the end of the interview, Appellant signed a written statement admitting that he intentionally burned his home and withdrawing the claim.

At trial, Appellant's counsel relied primarily on the recorded interview to argue self defense and accidental discharge of the shotgun. He argued that Appellant panicked after Shirley was shot, setting fire to the previously spread fuel in an attempt to cover up her unintended death; he conceded that Appellant was guilty of arson and concealing a death. There was no evidence that Shirley was armed during the encounter, so in support of his self-defense claim, Appellant called his step-daughter to testify that Shirley had threatened to kill Appellant around the time of the divorce in 2002. Appellant did not testify.

Appellant does not dispute the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions. Nevertheless, as is this Court's practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the record and conclude that, when viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to reject Appellant's contrived and changing stories and to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979). See also Lowe v. State, 298 Ga. 810, 812, 783 S.E.2d 111

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Depriest v. State
907 S.E.2d 274 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2024)
Lopez v. State
898 S.E.2d 441 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2024)
Benjamin Gerald Liggett v. State
Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2020
Varner v. State
306 Ga. 726 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2019)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
822 S.E.2d 254, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bennett-v-state-ga-2018.