Carter v. State

828 S.E.2d 294, 305 Ga. 874
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMay 20, 2019
DocketS19A0440
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 828 S.E.2d 294 (Carter 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
Carter v. State, 828 S.E.2d 294, 305 Ga. 874 (Ga. 2019).

Opinion

Ellington, Justice.

**874Following a jury trial, Cameron Taboris Carter was found guilty of the malice murder of Ashley Garry and other offenses.1 Carter claims on appeal that he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. We affirm for the reasons set forth below.

Viewed in a light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the evidence shows the following. Garry was last seen alive sometime after 9:30 p.m. on September 6, 2014, by her young son, when the boy's grandparents picked him up from Garry's residence off of 10th Street in Cordele for an overnight visit. The next day, a co-worker was concerned that Garry had not reported to work that morning and was not responding to phone calls. After the co-worker's shift, she went to Garry's residence around 4:00 p.m., where she knocked and called out Garry's name with no response. After walking around to the other side of the home, she saw a door with a *296damaged frame and a bent dead bolt sticking out. She called 911.

Responding officers found Garry inside, dead. She was slumped face down in the doorway to her bedroom, with her legs tucked under her body, still clothed in her work uniform and with her car keys in her hand. An autopsy showed that Garry was shot in the center of the top of her head. The bullet traveled straight down and lodged in the brain stem, causing immediate death. The path of the bullet and the position of the body were consistent with Garry having been shot by someone standing over her while she knelt. Garry's television and some of her son's shoes had been stolen.

Eric Hunt testified at trial that on September 6, 2014, he lived near Carter in Cordele, and that he and Carter had been friends for a few months. During that time, Carter regularly carried a small, **875black .380 handgun. On the night of Garry's murder, Carter was at Hunt's residence until around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., when they left the apartment. Hunt, who was walking to Pateville to see his girlfriend, parted ways with Carter on 10th Street near Garry's home. Carter had his pistol. After Hunt arrived at his girlfriend's house, he received a phone call from Carter's sister at approximately 1:00 a.m. Hunt told her that he had not seen her brother since they split up. She called Hunt again at approximately 4:00 a.m., and then between 5:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., and Hunt told her that he still had not heard from or seen Carter.

On November 11, 2014, Quatanna Shennett returned to the apartment she shared with Shaquille Loving in Hawkinsville and saw a man inside whom she did not know. She walked back outside and called 911, and then saw the man leave the apartment carrying three pairs of Loving's shoes. He threw the shoes at her when she confronted him and then ran into a nearby apartment. Later that morning, as responding officers searched the area, they found Carter trying to break into another apartment in the same complex and arrested him. He had four items that belonged to Loving: his wallet, his .40-caliber Glock pistol, and two loaded magazines. Carter was also carrying a .380 Jiminez pistol in his front left pocket. A ballistics report matched the bullet recovered from Garry's body to the .380 Jiminez pistol Carter was carrying when he was arrested.

When questioned by a GBI agent, Carter gave conflicting explanations for his possession of the Jiminez pistol. First, he maintained that he stole the weapon from the same residence from which he stole the Glock handgun; next, Carter told the agent that he got the gun from someone named Sequoia Armstrong; he then said that he got the gun from "Shake," identified by the agent as Sir Gabriel Patrick; he finally claimed that the weapon came from a fourth source, "Chavers."

At trial, Reasha Smith testified that she was Carter's girlfriend in late 2014. In October 2014, Carter moved in with her in her Hawkinsville apartment, which was next door to Loving and Shennett's apartment. On November 10, the night before Carter was arrested for burglary, Carter accused Smith of cheating on him. During their argument, he told her, "I know you're lying ... I will kill you; it's not like I ain't got away with it before."

1. In accordance with this Court's standard practice in appeals of murder cases, we have reviewed the record and find that the evidence was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find Carter guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

**8762. Carter claims that the trial court erred in rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim based on his trial counsel's failure to object on three separate occasions to the admission of the sentencing portion of entire and unredacted dispositions from cases involving him as a juvenile, as violations of OCGA § 24-4-404. To prove ineffective assistance, Carter must show both that his counsel's performance was professionally deficient and that, but for the unprofessional performance, there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the proceeding would have been different. See Strickland v. Washington , 466 U. S. 668, 687, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984). We need not *297review both parts of this test if Carter fails to prove one of them. See Stripling v. State , 304 Ga. 131, 138 (3) (b), 816 S.E.2d 663 (2018).

At trial, S. J. testified about an incident in July 2006, in which she saw someone looking in her window and then heard someone trying to open her door. When the State tendered State's Exhibit 64, a certified copy of the juvenile court disposition showing that Carter, then 16 years old, was adjudicated delinquent for acts that would have constituted the offense of being a "peeping Tom,"2 defense counsel objected on the grounds that the exhibit constituted an inadmissible juvenile disposition, was improper character evidence, and was not relevant. The trial court admitted State's Exhibit 64.

R. F.

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Related

Carter v. State
305 Ga. 874 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2019)

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Bluebook (online)
828 S.E.2d 294, 305 Ga. 874, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carter-v-state-ga-2019.