Dupree v. State

600 S.E.2d 654, 267 Ga. App. 561, 2004 Fulton County D. Rep. 1824, 2004 Ga. App. LEXIS 711
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMay 24, 2004
DocketA04A0239
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 600 S.E.2d 654 (Dupree 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
Dupree v. State, 600 S.E.2d 654, 267 Ga. App. 561, 2004 Fulton County D. Rep. 1824, 2004 Ga. App. LEXIS 711 (Ga. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

Adams, Judge.

A Walker County jury found Steven Greg Dupree guilty of three counts of aggravated assault upon a peace officer and five misdemeanor traffic offenses. On appeal, Dupree claims that the state failed to prove criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt for each count in the indictment. Dupree also contends that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence an incomplete copy of an audiotape and a photograph that was not provided to Dupree until the morning of the trial. Dupree further claims that the jury’s felony verdicts were vague, ambiguous, and void, and that the trial court erred in failing to correct the ambiguity. We affirm for the reasons set forth below.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s 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 fact to find the defendant guilty of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.

(Citations and footnotes omitted.) Gray v. State, 260 Ga. App. 197 (581 SE2d 279) (2003). So viewed, the evidence shows that Dupree’s girlfriend, Virginia Miller, asked for assistance from the Chattooga County Sheriffs Office in removing her clothes from a mobile home she shared with Dupree. Shortly after Officer Brandon, Officer Hill, and Miller arrived at the mobile home, Dupree sped by several times in his pickup truck. Dupree eventually pulled into the driveway and emerged from the truck in a state of rage. He removed the padlock from the trailer and hurled it in the direction of the officers, then went [562]*562inside, grabbed two bags of clothing, and threw the bags out the door, hitting an officer on the arm.

Dupree then got back into his truck and backed out of the driveway, shifting gears so as to cause gravel to be thrown on the officers and their vehicles. The officers decided to pursue after Dupree pulled onto the highway without looking for oncoming traffic, forcing an approaching vehicle into an emergency stop in order to avoid a collision.

The officers were forced to maintain speeds of 130 mph simply to keep Dupree’s vehicle in sight. During the initial pursuit, Dupree ran a stop sign and slammed on his brakes in an apparent attempt to force the lead chase car into the back of his truck. When the officers tried to form a rolling roadblock by boxing Dupree’s truck in between the patrol cars, Dupree countered by trying to run the lead patrol vehicle, which was driven by Hill, off the road.

The Chattooga County officers handed primary responsibility for the pursuit to the Georgia State Patrol after following Dupree into Walker County, and Officer Daniel Pollock became Dupree’s lead pursuer. While Pollock was in pursuit, Dupree drove through a roadblock set up by the Lafayette Police Department, causing the officers to jump out of the way to avoid being hit. Law enforcement officers then attempted another rolling roadblock, with Pollock’s vehicle located to the right of Dupree’s truck, but Dupree tried to ram Pollock’s vehicle and force it off the road. The pursuing officers backed off the chase, during which time Dupree ran off the road, sideswiping a tree and flattening his right front tire before getting back on the highway.

Dupree continued into Tennessee where Tennessee law enforcement officers joined the chase. Dupree turned into a dead end subdivision street in Chattanooga, turned around, and struck Pollock’s vehicle on the way out. Dupree then ran through a road block set up by Tennessee law enforcement officers by pushing their vehicles out of the way, and he continued, suffering another flat tire, and only stopped after his truck’s tire rims failed to gain traction on the highway.

1. Dupree claims the state failed to prove the element of criminal intent with respect to the aggravated assault charges. We disagree. Aggravated assault, which contains the elements of simple assault, requires an intent to injure. Watkins v. State, 254 Ga. 267, 269 (1) (328 SE2d 537) (1985). Dupree argues that evidence of his lack of intent to injure included the testimony of Samuel Perri, a court appointed psychologist who had “a question about [Dupree’s] criminal responsibility” based on Perri’s pre-trial interview with Dupree. In the interview, Dupree reported that he had suffered a head trauma [563]*563several years earlier that resulted in. a coma; that he suffered from a seizure disorder; and that he did not remember the events that led to his arrest.

Miller testified that she had seen Dupree experience four or five seizures. She recounted one seizure that occurred while Dupree was driving and testified that during his seizures Dupree is “like a zombie.” According to Miller, Dupree’s seizures tended to occur when he was not taking his medicine and that at the time of the incident Dupree had not had a supply of medicine for five days. Dupree testified that he blanked out on the date of the incident and could not recall the period of time from leaving his trailer to when he woke up surrounded by police officers.

We conclude that, notwithstanding the evidence that Dupree may have experienced a seizure during the chase, the jury was authorized to conclude that Dupree possessed the criminal intent sufficient to support his convictions for aggravated assault upon a peace officer. The trier of fact may find criminal intent “upon consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive, and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted.” OCGA § 16-2-6. “Criminal intent is peculiarly a jury issue.” (Punctuation and footnote omitted.) Roberts v. State, 258 Ga. App. 107, 108 (1) (572 SE2d 744) (2002). Factors from which a jury could infer criminal intent include Dupree’s continued expression of hostility toward the officers during the chase. Officer Brandon testified that Dupree “had his arm hooked out the window and when we would get close to him, he would give us the finger.” Officer Samuel Parker testified that “he was looking at us and making obscene gestures at us” and that “I couldn’t believe the aggression.” Evidence also showed that Dupree was able to elude several rolling roadblocks by attempting to run officers’ vehicles off the road, maneuvered his vehicle through stationary roadblocks, and maintained control of his vehicle at high rates of speed over an extended period of time. This evidence is both inconsistent with Miller’s accounts of Dupree as being in a “zombie-like” state during his seizures and consistent with an intent to harm law enforcement officers. The jury was authorized to find Dupree acted with criminal intent.

2. Dupree contends the trial court erred by admitting an audio recording into evidence. Dupree claims that no foundation was established under the business records exception to the hearsay rule and that the audio recording was an incomplete reproduction of the original recording.

But Dupree has failed to include in the record the audiotape used at trial or a transcript of the tape. This failure was identified in the State’s brief, yet Dupree has still not caused the items to be submitted. Nor has Dupree explained in his brief what harm allegedly [564]*564resulted from admission of the audio recording or from failure to admit a complete recording.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
600 S.E.2d 654, 267 Ga. App. 561, 2004 Fulton County D. Rep. 1824, 2004 Ga. App. LEXIS 711, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dupree-v-state-gactapp-2004.