Chester v. State

414 S.E.2d 477, 262 Ga. 85, 92 Fulton County D. Rep. 95, 1992 Ga. LEXIS 247
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMarch 20, 1992
DocketS91A1380
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 414 S.E.2d 477 (Chester 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
Chester v. State, 414 S.E.2d 477, 262 Ga. 85, 92 Fulton County D. Rep. 95, 1992 Ga. LEXIS 247 (Ga. 1992).

Opinions

Bell, Justice.

James Chester appeals his convictions of the vehicular homicide of Christy Lamaine and of the malice murder of Darlene Deaton.1 We affirm.

At about 6:15 p.m. on February 20, 1990, Chester arrived in an El Camino at an apartment complex where his former girl friend, Sandra Davis, lived. Appearing intoxicated, flushed, and very angry, Chester argued with Davis, who earlier that afternoon had told Chester she intended to marry someone else. Chester yelled at Davis that “your f--a-has had it.” Chester became so abusive that another resident of the apartment complex, Joel Wester, told Chester that he had better leave or Davis was going to call the police. Chester slapped Wester, and said, “Damn women, we ought to kill them all.” Chester then left.

Jack Wilbanks, Spencer Smith, and Gary Cooper saw an El Camino speeding down Old Concord Road in Smyrna, Georgia, at approximately 6:45 p.m. The El Camino struck from behind two young women walking in the roadway, Christy Lamaine, age 15, and Darlene Deaton, age 14. Lamaine hit the windshield, flipped off the El Camino, skidded along the pavement, and came to rest in the southbound traffic lane. Deaton flipped onto the hood and then rolled over the top of the truck and into the back cargo area. There was no oncoming traffic, and witnesses did not hear the El Camino skid or blow [86]*86its horn. One witness testified that as the El Camino approached the girls it was “revved . . . pretty high” and was exceeding the speed limit. The El Camino continued southbound and stopped at the red light at the intersection with Pat Mell Road. Wilbanks and Cooper pursued the El Camino and wrote down the license tag number, which was later matched to a vehicle registered to Chester’s mother.

At about 7:00 p.m., Chester arrived at Al G’s Liquor Store on Austell Road and purchased two bottles of peach brandy, counting out exact change for the purchase. The store’s clerk and a customer observed extensive damage to the El Camino, including a cracked windshield and smashed headlight. After leaving the store, Chester leaned over the back of the El Camino and adjusted a piece of carpet in the bed of the truck for two or three minutes. Elton McDaniel, who was parked next to the El Camino, thought something was under the carpet.

Emergency personnel at the accident scene found Lamaine’s body and parts of a grill and headlight assembly that were later matched to the El Camino. Police searched but were unable to locate Deaton.

According to Davis, Chester called her at about 10:00 p.m. and accused her of breaking his windshield.

The next morning, three police officers arrived at Chester’s home. When questioned, Chester replied that he could not remember driving, but that it was possible he had driven because he had blackouts when he drank. When Officer Shelnutt informed him he had hit two girls, Chester appeared surprised but not remorseful and said, “Oh, God. Oh, no.” Chester had keys to the El Camino in his pocket. He denied remembering hitting the girls, and only recalled dreaming of a girl lying on some railroad tracks.

At approximately the same time that officers were at Chester’s home, investigators located Deaton’s body near the abandoned CSX railroad tracks off Cooper Lake Road. Three-quarters of a mile away, officers found Chester’s locked truck stuck halfway in a ditch on the gravel roadbed. Deaton’s injuries were consistent with being struck by an automobile. A medical examiner testified that Deaton probably lived 30 minutes to an hour after the accident and would have survived if given prompt medical treatment.

1. In his second and third enumerations of error, Chester contends that the evidence is insufficient to support the conviction for the murder of Darlene Deaton. We disagree. Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the verdict, there was evidence as follows: At the time of the accident Chester was angry at women, and was speeding and drunk. Although he was drunk, he knew that he struck the two girls, and that Darlene Deaton was in the bed of his truck. Moreover, he knowingly dumped Deaton’s body at an isolated, abandoned [87]*87railroad track, thus making it highly unlikely that anyone would render aid to Deaton to save her life. Based on these facts, we conclude that a rational trier of fact could have found the implied malice necessary to convict Chester of malice murder. We thus affirm the murder conviction. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).

2. In his first enumeration of error Chester argues the indictment was defective for several reasons and that, because of those defects, the trial court erred in overruling his special and general demurrers to the indictment. We find no error.

The indictment contained two counts that were identical but for the names of the victims, and each count charged Chester with malice murder, OCGA § 16-5-1, and vehicular homicide, OCGA § 40-6-393. The indictment charged Chester

with the offense of MURDER for the said accused, . . . did unlawfully with malice aforethought, cause the death of [name of decedent], a human being, by striking her with a motor vehicle operated by the accused after said accused had been declared and served as a Habitual Violator under O.C.G.A. § 40-5-58; said act occurring within five years of said declaration, and while his license was in revocation.

(a) Chester argues that the vehicular homicide statute, § 40-6-393, precludes a murder charge in vehicular deaths. We disagree. This issue has been decided adversely to Chester in Foster v. State, 239 Ga. 302, 303 (236 SE2d 644) (1977). See also Anderson v. State, 254 Ga. 470, 471 (1) (330 SE2d 592) (1985) (holding evidence supported finding of implied malice in vehicular death involving reckless driving).

(b) Chester argues that the indictment improperly joined separate and distinct offenses, i.e., malice murder and vehicular homicide, in the same count of the indictment. We disagree.

“[I]t is well settled that offenses of the same nature and differing only in degree may be joined in one count in the same indictment; and it is also clearly well settled that offenses not of the same nature, if they constitute but one transaction, may be joined in one count in the same indictment.” [State v. Williams, 247 Ga. 200, 203 (2) (275 SE2d 62) (1981), quoting Mitchell v. State, 6 Ga. App. 554, 556 (65 SE 326) (1909).]

Malice murder and vehicular homicide are offenses of the same nature, in that they are both homicide crimes, and they differ only in degree, in that malice murder requires proof of malice, § 16-5-1 (a, b), [88]*88and vehicular homicide does not, § 40-6-393 (a, b, c) Moreover, in this case both the alleged malice murder and vehicular homicide resulted from the same transaction, which was Chester striking and killing the victims while driving with a revoked license.

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Chester v. State
414 S.E.2d 477 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1992)

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Bluebook (online)
414 S.E.2d 477, 262 Ga. 85, 92 Fulton County D. Rep. 95, 1992 Ga. LEXIS 247, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chester-v-state-ga-1992.