319 Ga. 267 FINAL COPY
S24A0263. HEAD v. THE STATE.
BOGGS, Chief Justice.
Appellant Nicholas Bernard Head challenges his convictions
for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting
death of Quintavia Wade. Appellant contends that his rights under
the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United
States Constitution were violated when the State read into evidence
prior testimony given about the murder weapon by Emily Bagwell,
the State’s firearms expert, and that the trial court committed plain
error in allowing another firearms examiner, Kyle Wheelus, to
testify as a “verifier” of Bagwell’s analysis about the bullet recovered
in Wade’s autopsy. We conclude that, even assuming that there was
error with regard to the admission of Bagwell’s prior testimony
about the murder weapon, any error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt given the overwhelming evidence against
Appellant, including the testimony of two police officers who witnessed the shooting. Additionally, because Wheelus’s testimony
was based on his own ballistics analysis, there was no plain error in
allowing his testimony. Accordingly, we affirm.1
1. The evidence presented at trial showed the following.2 On
1 Wade was killed on October 16, 2017. On June 26, 2018, a Clarke County grand jury indicted Appellant for malice murder and other crimes in connection with Wade’s death. That indictment was nolle prossed. On April 13, 2021, a Clarke County grand jury indicted Appellant for the following crimes related to the death of Wade: malice murder, three counts of felony murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and two counts of possession of a firearm by a first offender probationer. It also indicted Appellant for an earlier aggravated assault and simple battery against Courtney Williams. One felony murder count was quashed, and at a trial from August 9-12, 2021, the jury acquitted Appellant of the counts involving Williams and found him guilty on all remaining counts. The trial court sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole for malice murder and consecutive terms of imprisonment totaling 15 years for two of the weapons charges. The felony murder verdicts were vacated by operation of law, and the trial court merged the other counts for sentencing. See Dixon v. State, 302 Ga. 691, 696-698 (808 SE2d 696) (2017). On August 16, 2021, Appellant filed a motion for new trial, which he amended with new counsel on October 4, 2022. After an evidentiary hearing on November 2, 2022, the trial court entered an order denying the motion on May 5, 2023. The trial court twice vacated and reentered the order denying the motion for new trial (once because the order was not served on Appellant’s counsel and once for a technical glitch with an e-filing system), and Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal. The case was docketed in this Court to the term beginning in December 2023 and submitted for a decision on the briefs. 2 Because of the harmless error analysis undertaken in Division 2, we
set out the evidence in detail rather than recounting it in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict. See Moore v. State, 315 Ga. 263, 264 n.2 (882 SE2d 227) (2022). 2 October 16, 2017, Appellant’s former girlfriend, Courtney Williams,
went to retrieve some of her clothes from the home that she and
Appellant formerly shared. Her friend Wade was with her, though
Williams and Wade drove separately. Williams was scared to be
around Appellant, and when she arrived at the home, she thought
she saw someone inside the house by the window. Believing
Appellant to be there, she drove away and called 911. Officers
responded and while an officer was standing next to Williams,
Williams answered a call from Appellant. The officer spoke loudly
and said that if Appellant was in the house, he needed to come out
and talk to the officers. Appellant told Williams he was not in the
house, and officers later confirmed that fact. After receiving
information from the officer about how to obtain a temporary
protective order, Williams and Wade went to the courthouse in
Wade’s car, but Williams did not have her ID and could not apply for
the TPO. Wade then drove Williams back to Williams’s home, and
while en route, Wade received a call from someone named Jeff who
asked for a ride. After picking up Jeff, Wade dropped Williams back
3 off at Williams’s home.
Later that afternoon, after Wade had returned to her own
apartment, Appellant arrived at Wade’s apartment. Yasmeen
White, Wade’s friend and co-worker, arrived at Wade’s apartment
sometime after Appellant arrived. White parked her car on the
street, and when she exited her car, she saw Appellant and Wade
outside the apartment on the back patio, which faced the street.
Appellant was pushing Wade against the apartment wall, and as
White walked toward the back patio, Appellant said “what’s up,
Yas?” White entered the apartment through the back patio door and
saw that Appellant had a pistol in his back pocket. White heard
Appellant tell Wade that he wanted Wade to call Williams and tell
Williams to come to the apartment. Wade said that she could not
call Williams because Appellant had her phone, and Appellant told
Wade to use White’s phone. White gave her phone to Wade. Wade
called Williams and told her that Appellant had “ripped her bra, and
put a gun to her head”; that Appellant “was going to kill her” if
Williams did not come to Wade’s apartment; and that if the police
4 came, Appellant was going to shoot Wade. Wade gave the phone
back to White, and White saw that Wade had typed “911” on the
keypad and understood from Wade’s nod of her head that Wade
wanted White to call 911 without alerting Appellant. White went
inside a closet, called 911, and told the operator that a man had a
gun and was threatening to kill Wade. After the phone call between
Williams and Wade ended, Williams also called 911 and reported
that Appellant was at Wade’s apartment and was threatening to kill
her. The jury heard both 911 calls.
Officers Shawn Denmark and Edward Herron, both of the
Athens-Clarke County Police Department, responded to the 911
calls. As they arrived, they saw Appellant and Wade on the back
patio. Officer Herron testified that his initial thought was that
Appellant and Wade “were playing.” However, he then saw Wade
walking backward while Appellant had “something like a gun in his
hand,” and he observed Wade “swatting at” Appellant to “redirect or
. . . swing at his arms.” Wade’s hands were open, and she did not hit
the gun or ever gain control of the gun. He saw Appellant shoot
5 Wade, and in response, Officer Herron fired his service weapon, a
nine-millimeter Glock, in the direction of the back patio. Appellant
was not hit and retreated into the apartment. Appellant then
stepped back onto the patio with one foot but remained partially out
of view. Officer Herron repeatedly told Appellant to drop the gun
and put his hands up. Appellant did not comply. Instead, he yelled
something indistinguishable at the officers, and then shot himself in
the face. After Appellant shot himself, the gun he was holding
discharged again. As Appellant fell to the ground, he appeared to
fall on top of the gun.3
The State played body camera footage from Officer Herron,
although the recording does not show what happened on the back
patio. However, the recording included Officer Herron’s statements
over his radio and to other officers describing the shooting moments
after it occurred. Officer Herron first said, “I shot off three rounds
after he shot her.” Shortly thereafter, Officer Herron said that “the
3 The trial testimony does not make clear whether Appellant fired the
gun again after shooting himself and then dropped it or whether he dropped the gun after shooting himself and the gun discharged accidentally. 6 male shot the female” as Officer Herron was getting out of the car
and that they were “tussling over the gun; he shot himself when I
told him to get on the ground.” Officer Herron acknowledged during
his testimony that in a use-of-force investigation with GBI agents
that occurred the same day as the shooting, he said that he never
actually saw a gun and that he was not able to see Wade’s head
clearly for part of the time.4
Officer Denmark testified that he saw Appellant shoot Wade in
the head. He described Appellant and Wade as being in a “physical
altercation,” with Appellant walking backward, with his left hand
on Wade’s right shoulder, dragging Wade onto the patio and holding
her in a “bent over” position. Officer Denmark acknowledged that in
prior testimony, he said that he was not looking directly at
Appellant and Wade. Officer Wang of the Athens-Clarke County
Police Department was the first officer to approach the patio after
Appellant shot himself; Appellant and Wade were both lying on the
4 A portion of Officer Herron’s interview with GBI agents was played for
the jury, but the record does not indicate precisely which portion was played. 7 ground. The gun was not visible at first, but when Officer Wang
stepped close to Appellant’s shoulder, Officer Wang saw the gun
“right beside [Appellant] on the other side of his body.” Officer Wang
picked up the gun, which was a Taurus nine-millimeter handgun.
Appellant was arrested and taken to a hospital, where he recovered
from the self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The medical examiner who conducted Wade’s autopsy
recovered several parts of a bullet from Wade’s head and concluded
that the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the top of
Wade’s head. The medical examiner also examined Wade’s hands
and found no evidence of defensive wounds or bruises or scrapes on
her hands.
GBI firearms examiner Emily Bagwell, whose testimony from
a prior probation revocation hearing was read into evidence at trial
by the State, served as the primary firearms examiner in this case.
In that capacity, she examined the bullet that the medical examiner
extracted from Wade’s head. She also examined and test-fired the
Taurus nine-millimeter handgun that Officer Wang found next to
8 Appellant. Bagwell concluded that the bullet recovered during
Wade’s autopsy was shot from the Taurus handgun and that the
bullet could not have been fired from a Glock handgun. She also
conducted a trigger pull test and concluded that the Taurus did not
have a “hair trigger,” which she described as a “very light trigger” or
one that will fire with around one pound of pressure or less. She
concluded that the Taurus would need a pull force of at least four
and one-half pounds to fire; she did not conduct a test to see if the
gun would fire if dropped. She explained that to fire the gun, a
person would have to pull backward on the slide to load a cartridge
into the chamber and then pull the trigger.
After Bagwell completed her examination of the bullet and the
Taurus, GBI firearms examiner Kyle Wheelus performed the next
stage of the GBI’s standard examination, which involved serving as
a “verifier” of some of Bagwell’s findings. Wheelus testified at trial
that he used a microscope to examine the bullet received from the
medical examiner and concluded that the bullet could not have been
fired from a Glock and could have been fired from a nine-millimeter
9 gun made by one of seven manufacturers, including Taurus.
Wheelus did not determine whether the bullet was fired from the
Taurus recovered at the scene and did not test or fire the Taurus.
Mark Tanner, a firearms examiner with the GBI, also served as a
“verifier” and testified at trial. He compared the bullet from the
autopsy and a bullet that was test-fired from the Taurus and
concluded that the bullet recovered in the autopsy was fired from
the Taurus. Tanner did not examine the Taurus.
Appellant did not testify at trial, and his counsel argued for an
acquittal based on accident. In opening arguments, Appellant’s
counsel told the jury that Appellant did not bring a gun to the
apartment; that the gun was already at the apartment and was
likely left there by “Jeff,” the man to whom Wade had given a ride;
and that Wade picked up the gun, Appellant “grabbed for” the gun
because he wanted her to put it away, they wrestled over it, and the
gun went off. In closing arguments, Appellant’s counsel again
argued that Appellant did not bring a gun to the apartment; that
Appellant “was one of two people tussling over the gun”; that the
10 gun went off when Wade had her hands on it; and that Appellant
was “grabbing at [Wade] trying to push the gun away.” The jury was
charged that if it found “that the incident . . . occurred as a result of
misfortune or accident and not as a result of a criminal undertaking
or criminal negligence, then it would be your duty to acquit the
Defendant.”
2. Appellant contends that the admission of Bagwell’s prior
testimony about the Taurus handgun — that it did not have a “hair
trigger” and that it required at least four and a half pounds of
pressure to fire — violated his rights under the Confrontation
Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
See Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 54 (124 SCt 1354, 158
LE2d 177) (2004) (Confrontation Clause prohibits the introduction
of testimonial statements by a nontestifying witness, unless the
witness is “unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior
opportunity for cross-examination.”). As noted above, Appellant
asserted a defense of accident, relying on Officer Herron’s
statements that he initially believed Appellant and Wade were
11 playing and that he saw them “tussling” over the gun. Appellant
contends that the error in admitting Bagwell’s testimony was
harmful because the “trigger pull” testimony allowed the jury to
reject his accident theory. The State argues that Appellant failed to
preserve this claim for ordinary appellate review because he did not
specifically rely on the Confrontation Clause in any of his objections
at the pretrial hearing or at trial and that regardless, any error was
harmless. As explained below, we assume, without deciding, that
the claim was preserved and that there was error, but we conclude
that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
At a pretrial hearing on August 3, 2021, approximately one
week before trial, the State indicated for the first time that it
intended to read into evidence at trial Bagwell’s testimony from
Appellant’s probation revocation hearing, which took place
approximately three years earlier.5 The prosecutor informed the
5 At the time of the offenses against Wade, Appellant was serving a sentence of probation under a first-offender plea. The probation revocation petition sought to revoke Appellant’s first-offender status based on his commission of the offenses against Wade. 12 trial court that on July 22, 2021, his office tried to subpoena Bagwell
by e-mail and received an automated response stating that Bagwell
was “not available.” After contacting a GBI manager, the prosecutor
learned that Bagwell began maternity leave in early July and would
not return until October 1, 2021. Appellant objected, arguing, in
part, that the State had not served Bagwell with a subpoena; that
Bagwell had not traveled out of the country; that maternity leave,
by itself, did not constitute unavailability or inability to testify; and
that while Bagwell was subject to cross-examination at the prior
hearing, counsel would have a different approach and strategy at
trial and that “the availability for cross-examination is not
equivalent.” The trial court ruled that Bagwell was “unavailable”
and that her prior testimony could be read into evidence at trial.
Prior to Bagwell’s testimony being read at trial by an employee of
the District Attorney’s office, Appellant renewed his prior objection.
We assume, without deciding, that Appellant sufficiently
preserved his Confrontation Clause objection for ordinary appellate
review. Compare OCGA § 24-1-103 (a) (1) (Party challenging
13 admission of evidence must state “specific ground of objection, if the
specific ground was not apparent from the context[.]”); Durham v.
State, 296 Ga. 376, 379 (768 SE2d 512) (2015) (noting “distinct
difference” between hearsay and Confrontation Clause objections to
admission of evidence), disapproved of on other grounds, Leonard v.
State, 316 Ga. 827, 835 n.6 (889 SE2d 837) (2023). Nevertheless, we
need not resolve whether the State met its burden to show that
Bagwell was unavailable and whether the admission of Bagwell’s
prior testimony violated Appellant’s right of confrontation. See Ohio
v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 74-75 (100 SCt 2531, 65 LE2d 597) (1980)
(prosecution bears burden of establishing whether witness is
unavailable for Confrontation Clause purposes), overruled on other
grounds, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 60-69. See also State v. Hamilton,
308 Ga. 116, 121-122 (839 SE2d 560) (2020) (proponent of hearsay
evidence of “unavailable” witness under OCGA § 24-8-804 bears the
burden of proving unavailability). Even an error of constitutional
dimension, such as the denial of the right of confrontation, may be
harmless if “the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the
14 error did not contribute to the verdict, such as . . . when the evidence
against the defendant is overwhelming.” Jones v. State, 314 Ga. 605,
616 (878 SE2d 505) (2022) (cleaned up).
Here, any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt
because the evidence was overwhelming. As noted above, the jury
was charged on Appellant’s theory that the shooting was an
accident. See OCGA § 16-2-2 (“A person shall not be found guilty of
any crime committed by misfortune or accident where it
satisfactorily appears there was no criminal scheme or undertaking,
intention, or criminal negligence.”). The jury also heard Appellant’s
theory of accident in opening and closing arguments. However, the
evidence that Appellant intentionally shot Wade was overwhelming.
White testified that when she first saw Appellant and Wade,
Appellant was pushing Wade against the apartment wall, and White
saw a gun in Appellant’s back pocket. White and Williams both
testified about Appellant’s threats to shoot Wade, and the jury heard
911 calls detailing those threats. Minutes after the 911 calls,
Appellant pulled or pushed Wade on to the patio, forcing her to bend
15 over. Officers Herron and Denmark both testified that they saw
Appellant shoot Wade. The jury also heard Officer Herron’s
statements moments after the fatal shooting in which he said that
Appellant shot Wade. Officer Herron further testified that he could
see Wade’s hands, which were open and were not on the gun. This
testimony contradicted Appellant’s theory that the shooting was an
accident that occurred during the struggle over the gun. Moreover,
the jury heard the medical examiner’s testimony that the bullet
entered the top of Wade’s head and that Wade had no defensive
wounds on her hands. Finally, the State did not reference Bagwell’s
“trigger pull” testing on the Taurus in opening or closing arguments.
Reviewing this record de novo and weighing the evidence as a
reasonable juror would, see Moore v. State, 315 Ga. 263, 271 (882
SE2d 227) (2022), we conclude that the State has carried its burden
of showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the admission of
Bagwell’s prior testimony about the “trigger pull” of the murder
weapon did not contribute to the verdict and thus that any error was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., Jones, 314 Ga. at 615-
16 616 (pretermitting whether trial court erred in limiting cross-
examination of witness in violation of defendant’s right of
confrontation and concluding any error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt in light of substantial evidence against the
defendant); Soto v. State, 285 Ga. 367, 370-372 (677 SE2d 95) (2009)
(error in admitting out-of-court statement to police in violation of
the defendant’s right of confrontation was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt in light of overwhelming evidence against the
defendant).
3. Appellant contends that the trial court committed plain
error in allowing Wheelus to testify as a “verifier” of Bagwell’s
ballistics analysis. To show plain error, Appellant must identify an
error that was not affirmatively waived; that was clear and obvious
beyond reasonable dispute; that affected his substantial rights,
which generally requires an “affirmative showing” that the error
probably did affect the outcome below; and that the error seriously
affected the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial
proceedings. Ruthenberg v. State, 317 Ga. 227, 230-231 (892 SE2d
17 728) (2023). We need not analyze all prongs of plain error review
where appellant fails to establish one of them. See Williams v. State,
315 Ga. 490, 496 (883 SE2d 733) (2023).
Here, Appellant’s argument appears to be that Wheelus was
merely a “surrogate” for Bagwell and that his testimony was
inadmissible because he did not examine the Taurus. See generally
Disharoon v. State, 291 Ga. 45, 47-48 (727 SE2d 465) (2012)
(discussing Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 564 U.S. 647, 652 (131 SCt
2705, 180 LE2d 610) (2011), and holding that expert with significant
personal connection to forensic test could testify in lieu of scientist
who actually conducted it). However, Appellant fails to recognize
that Wheelus performed his own analysis and testified about his
own examination of the bullet received from the autopsy. Wheelus
did not testify, for example, about Bagwell’s “trigger pull” test.
Rather, based on his independent analysis, he concluded that the
bullet could not have been fired from a Glock but could have been
fired from a gun made by one of seven manufacturers, including
Taurus. Under these circumstances, we conclude that Appellant has
18 failed to show trial court error, much less plain error, in permitting
Wheelus to testify about his own examination of the bullet recovered
from the autopsy.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Decided June 11, 2024.
Murder. Clarke Superior Court. Before Judge Haggard.
David T. Douds, for appellant.
Deborah Gonzalez, District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr,
Attorney General, Beth A. Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Clint C.
Malcolm, Meghan H. Hill, Senior Assistant Attorneys General, Grace
G. Griffith, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.