Mathis v. State

743 S.E.2d 393, 293 Ga. 35, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2211, 2013 WL 2150840, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 440
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedMay 20, 2013
DocketS13A0068
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 743 S.E.2d 393 (Mathis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Mathis v. State, 743 S.E.2d 393, 293 Ga. 35, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2211, 2013 WL 2150840, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 440 (Ga. 2013).

Opinion

HINES, Justice.

Jamall DeCarlos Mathis appeals his convictions and sentences for felony murder, aggravated battery, cruelty to a child, and battery, all in connection with the death of his infant son, Ja’Mari Myckahi Jones. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.1

Construed to support the verdicts, the evidence showed that Ja’Mari was born March 26, 2008, when Mathis was 18 years old. During the pregnancy of the mother, Tiasha Jones, Mathis provided no financial or other support to her, he threatened to have someone punch Tiasha in the stomach, and, when she was six months pregnant, he threw a spray bottle at her during an argument.

While Ja’Mari was alive, Mathis saw him less than ten times; his purchases for supplies and gifts for the baby totaled less than $200. In May 2009, Tiasha began legal proceedings to gain child support from Mathis, and a hearing was scheduled for. October 2009; in [36]*36August 2009, Mathis asked Jones to dismiss the complaint, but she did not. Ja’Mari did not spend a night with Mathis until August 2009. The second time he spent the night with Mathis, Ja’Mari had a swollen knee and limped the next day; Mathis said that Ja’Mari “probably fell.”

The third time Ja’Mari spent the night with Mathis was the night of September 15-16, 2009, when Ja’Mari was killed; the visit was at Mathis’s instigation. At the time, Mathis, and his mother, brother, sister, and infant niece were staying at the home of Mathis’s aunt while a new residence for Mathis’s family was being arranged. Mathis and his brother, Jeremy Lacey, went to pick up Ja’Mari at Tiasha’s home. When Mathis arrived, Ja’Mari cried; on the previous occasions that Mathis saw him, Ja’Mari had not done that. When they returned to the aunt’s home, Mathis fed Ja’Mari. At the time, Mathis was sleeping on a pallet on the floor of the bedroom of his cousin, Robert Washington. By 10:00 p.m., Mathis had put Ja’Mari to bed on the pallet, and Washington and Lacey were asleep on the bed; Mathis was in another room on a computer. Around 11:00 p.m., Mathis called Tiasha and said that Ja’Mari had been on a bed with his mother and niece, had fallen off, hit his head, and that Mathis was putting ice on the wound. Mathis called Tiasha again, and the two talked until 3:00 a.m. At that time, Washington woke up and saw Ja’Mari look at him; he noticed nothing amiss. Washington woke again at 6:25 a.m. and left the bedroom. Lacey awoke at 9:00 a.m. and left the bedroom; Mathis and Ja’Mari were then asleep on the pallet.

After 9:00 a.m., Mathis called out that Ja’Mari was not breathing. An ambulance was summoned: a paramedic arrived within three minutes of the call; Ja’Mari was not breathing, had a weak pulse, and his skin was still warm and dry, all indicating his respiratory distress occurred very recently; and, the knot on his head increased in size during the trip to the hospital, also indicating a recent injury. At the hospital, Mathis stated that Ja’Mari fell off the bed. Ja’Mari died within 24 hours from blunt force trauma to the head; he also had wounds to his chest and right arm, and an injury to the mouth that was consistent with something being jammed inside it.

Mathis testified that: on the night Ja’Mari last stayed with him, he put Ja’Mari on the bed with Washington and Lacey2 at 10:00 p.m., and went to another room; about 20 minutes later, he heard a thump and found Ja’Mari on the bedroom floor; a small knot developed over Ja’Mari’s right eye; he telephoned Tiasha and told her that Ja’Mari [37]*37had fallen and had a lump; she said to put ice on the injury, which he did, taking the child into the bathroom; the swelling over the eye subsided somewhat; he put Ja’Mari down on the pallet to sleep; he spoke on the telephone with Tiasha until 3:00 a.m.; then lay down on the pallet next to Ja’Mari, who was asleep and breathing properly; he awoke the next morning and went to the bathroom; when he returned to Washington’s bedroom, he saw that the left side of Ja’Mari’s head was swollen; and he called for help.

The only medical evidence presented at trial was that Ja’Mari’s injuries were not consistent with being inflicted at 11:00 p.m. the previous night, nor with having fallen from the bed, the top of which was 28 inches above the floor; the injuries to his head were such that he would have shown symptoms immediately, including being unconscious or nearly so. In Washington’s bedroom, a wet washcloth with blood on it was found behind the dresser; vomit was found on the floor. Two baseball bats belonging to Washington were also found; Ja’Mari’s injuries were consistent with being struck with such a bat, but no physical evidence was introduced directly linking the bats to the blows Ja’Mari suffered. Less than a month after Ja’Mari’s death, Mathis sent Tiasha text messages saying that he wished to have another child with her and inquiring if she would be receiving any money because of Ja’Mari’s death.

1. Mathis asserts that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions, contending that the State presented only circumstantial evidence that did not exclude all reasonable hypotheses except that of his guilt. See former OCGA § 24-4-6.

Questions as to the reasonableness of hypotheses are generally to be decided by the jury which heard the evidence and where the jury is authorized to find that the evidence, though circumstantial, was sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis save that of guilt, that finding will not be disturbed unless the verdict of guilty is insupportable as a matter of law.

Rogers v. State, 290 Ga. 18, 23 (4) (717 SE2d 629) (2011) (Citations and punctuation omitted.).

Mathis argues that the evidence did not exclude the possibility that another person in the house committed the crimes and showed only that he was present and had a financial motive to kill Ja’Mari. See Moore v. State, 255 Ga. 519 (340 SE2d 888) (1986). But this characterization of the evidence ignores testimony that Ja’Mari had previously been injured when in Mathis’s care, and that his version of events, particularly relating to putting Ja’Mari on the bed to go to [38]*38sleep, was contradicted by both Washington and Lacey; it also ignores testimony regarding Mathis’s behavior after Ja’Mari’s death. Resolving conflicts in the evidence and determining the credibility of witnesses is for the jury. Smith v. State, 280 Ga. 161, 162 (1) (625 SE2d 766) (2006). The evidence authorized the jury to find Mathis guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979); Smith, supra.

2. Mathis requested that the jury be instructed on the law regarding involuntary manslaughter under OCGA § 16-5-3 (a),3 urging that he could have been found guilty of causing Ja’Mari’s death by leaving him to sleep on the bed with Washington and Lacey, which could be considered to constitute the misdemeanor of reckless conduct under OCGA § 16-5-60;4 he also asserts that failing to promptly seek medical care could constitute reckless conduct.

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

Related

Bailey v. State
792 S.E.2d 363 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2016)
Collymore v. State
782 S.E.2d 7 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2016)
Smith v. State
765 S.E.2d 328 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2014)
Foster v. State
754 S.E.2d 33 (Supreme Court of Georgia, 2014)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
743 S.E.2d 393, 293 Ga. 35, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 2211, 2013 WL 2150840, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 440, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mathis-v-state-ga-2013.