Lawson v. State

481 S.E.2d 856, 224 Ga. App. 645, 97 Fulton County D. Rep. 747, 1997 Ga. App. LEXIS 187, 1997 WL 62953
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedFebruary 14, 1997
DocketA96A2089
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 481 S.E.2d 856 (Lawson 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
Lawson v. State, 481 S.E.2d 856, 224 Ga. App. 645, 97 Fulton County D. Rep. 747, 1997 Ga. App. LEXIS 187, 1997 WL 62953 (Ga. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

Smith, Judge.

Bernard Lamar Lawson was indicted on one count of robbery by sudden snatching, OCGA § 16-8-40 (a) (3), and one count of violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act by possessing cocaine, OCGA § 16-13-30 (a). 1 Lawson was found guilty by a jury of robbery by sudden snatching and possession of cocaine, his motion for new trial was denied, and he appeals.

Construed to support the verdict, the evidence shows that a vehicle driven by Lawson rear-ended the vehicle of the victim, a church secretary, at a stop sign on a Fayette County road. As they were talking about insurance, the victim went to the passenger side of her car to obtain her insurance card and write down the information on it.. Lawson followed her to the passenger door, reached into the car, and took a bag containing backup tapes for the church’s computer. He ran back to his car, and he and his companion sped away.

The police were notified and quickly located Lawson’s vehicle, which had been stolen in a carjacking two days earlier. Lawson and his companion led the police on a high-speed chase, narrowly missed a sheriff’s deputy directing traffic, evaded a rolling roadblock by rarm ming a patrol car, and continued to flee until Lawson lost control of the vehicle after the police shot out the tires. The stolen bag was found in the vehicle, along with a smoking device containing cocaine residue. After his arrest, Lawson signed a waiver of rights form and made a custodial statement in which he admitted hitting the victim’s vehicle and taking her bag and stated that he “was on drugs real bad.”

1. Lawson contends that the State failed to prove all the elements of robbery by sudden snatching, specifically that no force was shown and that the robbery was not from “the immediate presence” of the victim. For these reasons, he asserts, he was entitled to both a directed verdict on that count and a jury instruction on the lesser included offense of theft by taking. These contentions are without merit.

As Lawson himself acknowledges, “[f]orce is implicit in sudden snatching, both as a fact and as a legal proposition, the force being that effort necessary for the robber to transfer the property taken from the owner to his possession.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Dotson v. State, 160 Ga. App. 898, 899 (1) (288 SE2d 608) (1982). “In order to prove a case of robbery by suddenly taking or carrying away the property of another without his consent, it is only necessary *646 to show that the person robbed was conscious that something was being taken away from him, and that for any reason he was unable to prevent it; and consequently the only difference now between robbery of this class and larceny from the person is that in the latter case the property is abstracted without the knowledge of its possessor; but if the possessor becomes conscious, even in the taking, that his property is being taken away from him, and this knowledge is obtained before the taking is complete, the offense of robbery is committed.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Bryant v. State, 213 Ga. App. 301, 302 (444 SE2d 391) (1994).

As in Bryant, in which the victim saw the defendant take her purse from her shopping cart “no more than two feet away from her,” id. at 303, the victim here saw Lawson as he “reached in and grabbed” her bag from the floor of her vehicle as both of them were standing by the passenger door. Additionally, “the trial judge is justified in refusing to charge a lesser included offense when there is no evidence of the lesser included offense. [Cit.]” Id. at 302. The trial court did not err in refusing to direct a verdict of acquittal in favor of Lawson on the charge of robbery by sudden snatching, and it did not err in refusing to instruct the jury on a lesser included offense of theft by taking.

2. In a related enumeration, Lawson complains that the trial' court improperly addressed the jury regarding Lawson’s contentions that the lesser offense of theft by taking could be found. After the trial court repeatedly stated in the charge conference that there would be no charge on a lesser included offense of theft by taking, Lawson’s counsel attempted to raise this issue in closing argument. The trial court interrupted Lawson to instruct the jury that under the evidence, “this is either robbery by sudden snatching or it’s nothing, under count one.” As noted in Division 1, Lawson is incorrect in his assertion that the facts presented showed a lesser included offense of theft by taking. Moreover, he failed to object to the trial court’s statement, either at the time of the trial court’s statement or after the trial court’s charge to the jury, and has failed to preserve the alleged error for review. Hopkins v. State, 263 Ga. 354, 356 (2) (434 SE2d 459) (1993); Walker v. State, 258 Ga. 443, 444 (3) (a) (370 SE2d 149) (1988).

3. Lawson contends that the State failed to comply with the criminal discovery provisions of OCGA § 17-16-1 et seq. 2 with respect to a statement made by Lawson when he was taken into custody, a statement made by the victim, and a scientific report of a cocaine *647 test. Lawson’s counsel, however, waived any objection to the production of Lawson’s statement: “I have agreed to allow them to bring in the statement. . . without the ten days.” Counsel also acknowledged that he saw the victim’s statement in the State’s file when he inspected it pursuant to the State’s “open file policy.” He did not remember if he saw the scientific report in the file; the prosecutor stated positively that the scientific report had “always been in there and always been a part of both this file and the file of the codefendant.”

Lawson contends, however, that the State was obligated to serve him with copies of all these materials and that upon its failure to do so, the trial court should have stricken all related testimony. We disagree. Although the criminal discovery statutes use a variety of terms to describe the State’s duty to comply with discovery, the statutes applicable here do not require actual service upon defense counsel.

(a) In the case of Lawson’s statement to law enforcement officers shortly after his arrest, the language of OCGA § 17-16-4 (a) (1) is plain: “The prosecuting attorney shall . . . disclose to the defendant and make available for inspection, copying, or photographing any relevant written or recorded statements made by the defendant.” (Emphasis supplied.) This language contrasts with the express requirement of service of the statements of witnesses regarding an alibi defense in OCGA § 17-16-5

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Robert Benton, Jr. v. State
Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2020
Craft v. State
710 S.E.2d 891 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2011)
Brown v. State
710 S.E.2d 674 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2011)
City of Holly Springs v. Cherokee County
682 S.E.2d 644 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2009)
Kendrick v. State
630 S.E.2d 863 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2006)
Cochran v. State
625 S.E.2d 92 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2005)
Velasquez v. State
623 S.E.2d 721 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2005)
Hughes v. State
598 S.E.2d 43 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2004)
Lopez v. State
578 S.E.2d 304 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2003)
State v. Lockett
576 S.E.2d 582 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2003)
Smith v. State
570 S.E.2d 400 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2002)
Perkins v. State
568 S.E.2d 601 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2002)
Harris v. State
567 S.E.2d 394 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2002)
Rogers v. State
565 S.E.2d 583 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2002)
Carter v. State
560 S.E.2d 697 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2002)
Westmoreland v. State
538 S.E.2d 119 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2000)
Burns v. State
537 S.E.2d 768 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2000)
Christensen v. State
537 S.E.2d 446 (Court of Appeals of Georgia, 2000)
Taylor v. State
532 S.E.2d 669 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2000)
Adams v. State
521 S.E.2d 575 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 1999)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
481 S.E.2d 856, 224 Ga. App. 645, 97 Fulton County D. Rep. 747, 1997 Ga. App. LEXIS 187, 1997 WL 62953, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lawson-v-state-gactapp-1997.