Lenoir v. State

745 S.E.2d 824, 322 Ga. App. 583, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2261, 2013 WL 3315943, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 566
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedJuly 2, 2013
DocketA13A0128
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 745 S.E.2d 824 (Lenoir 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
Lenoir v. State, 745 S.E.2d 824, 322 Ga. App. 583, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2261, 2013 WL 3315943, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 566 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

Phipps, Chief Judge.

In connection with an attack upon his then-fíancee D. W. in the presence of her young son, Emmett Lenoir was convicted of aggravated battery, sexual battery, false imprisonment, criminal damage [584]*584to property in the second degree, cruelty to children in the second degree, and interference with a 911 call. In this appeal, Lenoir challenges the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the property damage conviction. He also argues that the trial court erred in instructing the jury during the final charge and in rejecting his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. Lenoir has shown merit in only the sufficiency challenge; accordingly, we reverse his property damage conviction and affirm his other convictions.

At trial, the state showed the following. During the time in question, Lenoir was living with D. W. and her son, who was about seven years old.

D. W. testified about the attack that gave rise to this case. During the pre-dawn hours of June 21, 2003, D. W. rebuffed Lenoir’s sexual advances. Lenoir, who had been drinking gin that night, accused D. W. of having an affair, pushed her out of the bed, and ordered her to sleep in her son’s room. D. W. went to the bedroom where her son was sleeping, but Lenoir told her to come back to their bedroom. She returned and got back into the bed. As he sat in bed drinking gin, she fell asleep.

She was soon awakened, however, when Lenoir punched her in the mouth, causing it to bleed. She sat up. He demanded to know where she had spent her day; as she was providing him an account, he hit her in the head with the gin bottle, causing the bottle to break and the side of her head to bleed. Lenoir went to the kitchen, brought back a bottle of bleach, handed it to her, and ordered her to drink it. She poured the bleach onto the floor, and he punched her in the face.

D. W. headed to the living room for the only telephone in the house, but Lenoir pushed her, punched her in the mouth again, then dragged her by the hair back into the bedroom, where he threw her against the wall and, as D. W. testified, “just started beating me constantly.” By this time, her son had awakened and entered the bedroom; he was screaming for Lenoir to stop beating his mother.

Lenoir did not stop. He threw a space heater at D. W., striking the side of her face and head. He pulled down a picture overhanging the bed and broke it into pieces atop D. W.’s head. Then, he used a piece of the broken wooden frame to beat her about the head. Her son remained in the room — watching, crying, and screaming.

D. W. fled into the kitchen to retrieve a knife, but Lenoir was able to reach a steak knife first. When Lenoir tried to stab D. W., she grabbed the blade with her hand, and the blade broke from its handle. Lenoir grabbed another steak knife; D. W. grabbed its blade, too, which also broke from the handle. Lenoir began throwing dishes and glass canisters at D. W. When she tried to run outside, Lenoir grabbed her by her hair. He turned over the kitchen table. And when she [585]*585eventually fell to the floor, he picked up a chair and beat her on the head with it. D. W. sought refuge in her son’s room, but Lenoir followed her and began striking her in the face and on her head with a piece of the wooden picture frame. Then he pulled her back into their bedroom and stomped on her stomach.

D. W. screamed for her son to “go get mommy some help,” and although the boy tried to run out the front door, he could not open it — Lenoir had secured the door with a chain, which the boy could not reach. D. W. told her son to call 911, but he could not place a call on the telephone, which was cordless — Lenoir had removed the battery.

Using one hand to hold D. W. by her hair, Lenoir used his other hand to flip a table onto its side, then to pry off its leg. Then he beat D. W. on her head with the table leg. D. W.’s son remained at his mother’s side, screaming. Still holding the table leg, Lenoir told D. W, “If you let me stick this in you, it will all be over with.” D. W. recalled that, when she refused, “he tried to stick it in me .... I was laying on my back, but when he was trying I was fighting and I turned over.... [A]fter I turned over,... I had my legs closed, and he just was trying to stick the table leg up in me.”

The attack had been going on for over an hour. Bleeding profusely, D. W. began to feel dizzy, as though she would pass out. Lenoir retrieved a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it over D. W.’s lacerated body. D. W.’s son was begging Lenoir not to kill his mother. D. W. passed out, and when she awakened, Lenoir, her son, and her car were gone. She went to her neighbor’s house, and her neighbor took her to a hospital.

Meanwhile, Lenoir had driven to a friend’s house. That friend testified that, between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. on June 21, 2003, Lenoir appeared at his door wearing bloody clothing. He had with him D. W.’s son. Lenoir told his friend that he had “messed up” and that he was leaving. Lenoir left D. W.’s son with his friend, instructing the friend to call the child’s maternal grandmother. Lenoir’s friend quickly delivered the boy to his grandmother.

An emergency room doctor testified that D. W. arrived with multiple facial fractures and fractures to her arm and a finger. She had contusions in both eyes, as well as contusions all over her body. Her eyes were closed from the swelling, and she had multiple abrasions and lacerations on her face. He summarized that “she looked like a victim of a car crash.”

A detective from the sheriff’s office went to the hospital at about 7:00 a.m. to interview D. W. “[H]er face was completely bloody,” he described. There were severe lacerations across her face; there was massive swelling around her eye, cheek, and neck areas; and blood had matted her hair to her head. D. W.’s lacerated hands were [586]*586dripping blood to the floor. There were bruises on her arms and legs, lacerations on her inner knee, and bruises on her thighs. The detective took photographs of D. W.’s injuries, and those photographs were later shown to the jury.

While the detective was interviewing D. W, her son was brought to the hospital. While interviewing the boy, the detective observed on the child’s shirt and shoes what appeared to be spots of blood; also, one of his legs had a laceration, and he had a bruise on his forehead. The detective took photographs of the child’s shirt, shoes, laceration, and bruise, which photographs were later shown to the jury.

That same day, June 21, 2003, a crime scene investigator1 went to D. W.’s residence. He testified that, when he walked into the house, he detected a strong odor of bleach. Strewn about the house, he found, inter alia, overturned furniture; broken furniture, including a table that was missing a leg; a bloody, detached table leg; bloody pieces of a picture frame; clumps of hair that appeared to have been pulled out of someone’s head; a blood-stained, nearly empty bottle of bleach; broken china; a broken cordless telephone; a broken cordless telephone base; a battery that appeared to fit a cordless phone; and “a phone jack that appeared to have been pulled off a wall.” There were blood stains throughout the house, including upon a wall leading to a child’s bedroom. The jury was shown numerous photographs depicting D. W.’s residence in the state the investigator found it. The jury was also presented an audiovisual recording of the damage done to D.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
745 S.E.2d 824, 322 Ga. App. 583, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2261, 2013 WL 3315943, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 566, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lenoir-v-state-gactapp-2013.