Clarke v. State

731 S.E.2d 100, 317 Ga. App. 471, 2012 Fulton County D. Rep. 2636, 2012 WL 3263983, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 720
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedAugust 10, 2012
DocketA12A0924
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 731 S.E.2d 100 (Clarke 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
Clarke v. State, 731 S.E.2d 100, 317 Ga. App. 471, 2012 Fulton County D. Rep. 2636, 2012 WL 3263983, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 720 (Ga. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

Mikell, Presiding Judge.

Having been convicted by a jury of nine counts of felony theft by taking, Sandra Clarke appeals from the trial court’s denial of her motion for a new trial, arguing that the evidence was insufficient and alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. For the following reasons, we affirm.

1. Clarke contends that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence. We do not weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility, but only determine if the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of [472]*472fact to find the defendant guilty of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.1

So viewed, the record shows that Clarke, an attorney, began working with the law firm Sliz/McKinney in May 2003. Initially, she rented office space from the firm while handling her own clients through Gwinnett County’s indigent defense program and assisting the firm on other cases for an hourly fee. She was not obligated to share her indigent defense earnings with Sliz/McKinney. In November 2003, Clarke was unable to pay increased rent to the firm, so the parties entered into a new agreement. The firm paid her $50,000 per year, and she stopped paying rent. Jan McKinney, one of the lawyers at Sliz/McKinney, testified that Clarke became an employee, and that “anything that she earned as far as a fee was the property of the firm, whether it was an appointed case, a retained case, whatever it was.” Clarke, however, contended that she was an independent contractor and that her indigent defense fees belonged to her and were not part of her agreement with the firm. On May 14, 2008, a grand jury indicted Clarke on 43 counts of theft by taking in violation of OCGA § 16-8-2 related to payments she received for indigent defense work, but did not transmit to the firm. The trial court granted Clarke’s plea in bar based upon a statute of limitation defense as to 33 misdemeanor counts. The court directed a verdict on one felony count, and the jury returned a guilty verdict on the remaining nine felony counts.

(a) In her first enumeration,2 Clarke asserts that the state failed to prove that she had criminal intent, and that the issue is therefore a civil, rather than criminal matter. Clarke also contends that she kept the indigent defense money while acting under a claim of right in that “she believed she was entitled to those proceeds.”

OCGA § 16-8-2 pertinently provides that “[a] person commits the offense of theft by taking when he unlawfully takes or, being in lawful possession thereof, unlawfully appropriates any property of another with the intention of depriving him of the property ....” But one who takes under a fair or honest claim of right does not commit [473]*473larceny or theft.3 Notwithstanding that OCGA § 16-8-2 is not designed to punish a simple breach of contract, the presence of intent distinguishes theft by taking from breach of contract.4 There was evidence of intent in the instant case.

For example, it is undisputed that Clarke wrote letters to indigent defense clients on Sliz/McKinney letterhead, entered the hours she worked on indigent defense cases into the firm’s time and billing software system, and listed the firm’s address and/or telephone number on appointment of counsel and first appearance documents for indigent defense clients. Renee Brown, Sliz/McKinney’s bookkeeper, testified that the firm provided Clarke with color-coded files for her indigent defense cases and that the receptionist opened and managed those files for her. However, most of the indigent defense payments were sent to Clarke at a post office box, not at the firm’s address.

In July 2004, the firm received a check for about $ 1,600, made out to Clarke from Gwinnett County for indigent defense services she performed for multiple clients. As the county does not allow a firm to be paid for indigent defense work, all checks are made out to the individual lawyer. Some of the client work covered by that check had been done before Clarke’s November 2003 agreement with the firm, and some had been done after the agreement was in place. After a discussion with McKinney about which work was done when, Clarke wrote a check to the firm for approximately $761 to cover the amount she received for work done after her new employment agreement was in place. When Sliz/McKinney did not receive any more indigent defense monies from Clarke, McKinney asked Clarke why the firm was not getting paid and Clarke said she had been too busy to bill the time. Later, in a meeting held around the time Clarke left the firm, in March 2005, Clarke told McKinney that she had billed the county and was just waiting for the checks to be sent to the firm. At other meetings held after Clarke left the firm, McKinney testified that she told Clarke that Clarke owed the firm more than $17,000. Clarke countered that she owed about $9,500, but did not deny the debt. Clarke also sent the firm a letter saying, “If you’ll send me a bill, I’ll send you a check.” The evidence shows, however, that Clarke cashed indigent defense checks she received from the county and deposited the money in her personal account. The firm did not receive any indigent defense monies from Clarke after she left the firm.

[474]*474Clarke counters that the evidence is insufficient because she did not conceal the existence of the post office box to which the indigent defense checks were sent, and that she wrote the $761 check to pay attorney Jeff Sliz for assisting her with a case and not because of the employment agreement.

In circumstantial cases, however,

the question [of] whether there is a reasonable hypothesis favorable to the accused is the jury’s province. Questions as to reasonableness are generally to be decided by the jury which heard the evidence, and finds beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no reasonable hypothesis other than guilt. The appellate court will not disturb that finding, unless the verdict of guilty is insupportable as a matter of law.5

Further, “[conflicts in witness testimony are matters of credibility for the jury to resolve.”6 Clarke’s failure to deny the debt and promises to pay, coupled with evidence of her billing, timekeeping, and collection practices, provided evidence from which a jury could infer that Clarke was not acting under a claim of right, and that she had the intent required to commit theft by taking.7

(b) Clarke further contends that the evidence was insufficient in that the state failed to prove the indigent defense money she received was the property of Sliz/McKinney. Specifically, she argues that the state failed to prove there was a valid employment contract requiring her to pay the firm the proceeds from her indigent defense work, and that the weight of the evidence showed that she was an independent contractor rather than an employee.

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Bluebook (online)
731 S.E.2d 100, 317 Ga. App. 471, 2012 Fulton County D. Rep. 2636, 2012 WL 3263983, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 720, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clarke-v-state-gactapp-2012.