Bradley v. State

745 S.E.2d 763, 322 Ga. App. 541, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2249, 2013 WL 3286993, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 556
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJuly 1, 2013
DocketA13A0220
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 745 S.E.2d 763 (Bradley 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
Bradley v. State, 745 S.E.2d 763, 322 Ga. App. 541, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2249, 2013 WL 3286993, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 556 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Boggs, Judge.

After a jury trial, John Bradley was convicted of aggravated assault and armed robbery. His motion for new trial was denied, and he appealed, but his appeal was remanded by this court to allow him to raise an allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel. The motion for new trial based on ineffectiveness was denied, and Bradley appeals, asserting the general grounds, a fatal variance in the indictment, and ineffective assistance of counsel. Finding no error, we affirm.

1. Bradley contends that the State failed to show that he committed an aggravated assault upon the first victim, contending that he merely uttered threats without taking any substantial step towards the commission of a battery. He further contends that he was merely in possession of scissors and did not use them in an offensive manner. Similarly, he argues that he did not use the scissors offensively to rob the second victim, and he further argues that he did not intend to commit a theft.

Construed to support the jury’s verdict, the evidence shows that William Jones, a painter, had fired Bradley after he “messed ... up” a job. Although Jones testified he had paid Bradley in full for his work the previous week, the day after Bradley was fired he showed up at Jones’ house, where Jones and a couple of friends, including Horace Twiggs, had gathered after work. Jones testified that Bradley arrived on a bicycle and then walked up to the house and approached Twiggs [542]*542with a pair of scissors and challenged him to come out in the road and fight, stating that he wasn’t afraid of him or the police. Twiggs, who is disabled, told Bradley, “I can’t fight you.” Bradley continued to threaten Twiggs while holding the scissors; he was “angry” and “prancing back and forth.” Jones went into his house to call police, and Twiggs testified that after Jones left, Bradley “come up to me and told me what he’s going to do to me,” telling him that “he was going to F me up” while holding the scissors.

When Jones came back outside after calling the police, Bradley asked to borrow ten dollars, and Jones responded that he had no money. Jones walked to the front of the house, and Bradley followed him; when they reached the mailbox, Bradley “threw his bicycle down” and “stepped up to [Jones’] face,” and demanded money while first holding the scissors up to Jones and then “put the scissors like this (indicating).” When Jones pulled some money from his pocket, Bradley “snatched” it and fled. Jones agreed that he was “scared when John Bradley came at [him] with these scissors,” because “he had a weapon” and he was concerned he might use it.

The officer who responded to the 911 call testified that both Jones and Twiggs were “visibly shaken. Trembling voices. Highly excited. Wide eyes.” Based on the information they gave him, he went to a particular apartment in a nearby complex, and the man who answered the door identified himself as John Bradley. The officer read him his Miranda rights and then asked him if he was “down on Wisenbaker Lane today.” Bradley immediately and spontaneously stated, “I didn’t take any money from anybody.... He gave me that money. I didn’t pull no knife on anybody.” He also volunteered that he had used the fifteen dollars to buy alcohol, adding, “I don’t know why they were scared.”

(a) Bradley first contends that the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction of aggravated assault upon Horace Twiggs. A person commits aggravated assault when he commits an assault “[w]ith a deadly weapon or with any object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury.” OCGA § 16-5-21 (a) (2). And a person commits simple assault when he “[c]ommits an act which places another in reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury.” OCGA § 16-5-20 (a). The indictment alleged that Bradley “did make an assault upon the person of Horace Twiggs with a certain pair of scissors, the same being an object which when used offensively against a person, in the manner then and there used, was likely to result in serious bodily injury or death.” And

where the assault element of an aggravated assault charge is predicated on OCGA § 16-5-20 (a) (2), the State is not [543]*543required to prove that the defendant acted with an intent to injure the victim. Rather, it need only prove that the defendant intended to commit the act which placed the victim in reasonable apprehension of injury.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Lee v. State, 320 Ga. App. 573, 576 (740 SE2d 307) (2013).

Bradley points to Jones’ testimony that Bradley declared “if [Twiggs] wasn’t in my yard, he would — he would hurt him.” He contends this showed he had no present intention to attack Twiggs and just “happened to have a pair of scissors in his possession.” But Jones testified that Bradley approached Twiggs while holding the scissors and threatened him while “prancing up and down,” and Twiggs himself testified that Bradley “come up to me” after Jones went in the house, saying without any qualification that “he was going to F me up” while holding the scissors. Bradley cites Lewis v. State, 253 Ga. App. 578, 581 (560 SE2d 73) (2002), for the proposition that an accused must take a “substantial step towards commission of a battery.” But in Lewis, we held that while a mere verbal threat, without more, does not constitute assault, from the appellant’s

demeanor and actions when he made several threats directly toward the victim [ ] while standing only inches away from [him], we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found that a substantial step had been taken toward harming the victim [ ], that [the victim] had a reasonable apprehension of receiving immediate physical injury, and that a reasonable person would have felt the need to retreat in order to avoid receiving such injury.

Id. The jury could consider Bradley’s demeanor, statements, and conduct in threatening a disabled man while standing close to him holding a pair of scissors, as well as Bradley’s statements to the investigating officer, and find the evidence sufficient to show a reasonable apprehension of immediate physical injury. Any conflicts in the witnesses’ testimony were for the jury to resolve.

The scissors were displayed for the jury, which was authorized to determine whether they were an “object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to . . . result in serious bodily injury.” OCGA § 16-5-21 (a) (2). Davis v. State, 308 Ga. App. 7, 11-12 (1) (b) (706 SE2d 710) (2011) (screwdriver); Crane v. State, 297 Ga. App. 880, 883-884 (2) (678 SE2d 542) (2009) (claw hammer). And “[w]hether [Bradley] held the [scissors] in a threatening manner is a question of fact to be resolved by the jury.” (Citation [544]*544and footnote omitted.) Brown v. State, 281 Ga. App. 523, 525 (1) (b) (636 SE2d 709) (2006). Viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the evidence showed an aggravated assault.

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Bluebook (online)
745 S.E.2d 763, 322 Ga. App. 541, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2249, 2013 WL 3286993, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 556, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bradley-v-state-gactapp-2013.