317 Ga. 146 FINAL COPY
S23A0636. RANDOLPH v. THE STATE.
MCMILLIAN, Justice.
In March 2016, a jury found James Lorenzo Randolph guilty of
malice murder, armed robbery, and other crimes in connection with
the armed robbery of Carlos Torres and Dennis Dixon and the
shooting death of Rodney Castlin.1 On appeal, Randolph asserts that
the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions because the
State failed to corroborate the testimony of an accomplice and that
1 Castlin was killed on December 7, 2000. In December 2014, a Cobb
County grand jury indicted Randolph on charges of malice murder (Count 1), felony murder (Count 2), criminal attempt to commit armed robbery against Castlin (Count 3), two counts of armed robbery against Torres and Dixon, respectively (Counts 4 and 6), aggravated assault of Torres (Count 5), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 7). At a trial in March 2016, a jury found Randolph guilty of all counts. The trial court sentenced Randolph to serve three consecutive life sentences in prison on Counts 1, 4, and 6. In addition, the trial court sentenced Randolph to serve ten years in prison on Count 3, 20 years on Count 5, and five years on Count 7, with each sentence to be served consecutively for a total of three life sentences plus 35 years in confinement. Count 2 was vacated by operation of law. Randolph timely filed a motion for new trial, which he later amended through new counsel on October 14, 2022. Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion for new trial on December 27, 2022. Randolph timely appealed, and the case was docketed to the April 2023 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the briefs. the trial court erred in admitting evidence of two other acts under
OCGA § 24-4-404 (b). Because we conclude that the accomplice’s
testimony was sufficiently corroborated by other evidence admitted
at trial, that the trial court did not err in admitting one prior
incident of armed robbery, and that any error in admitting the other
incident (a home burglary) was harmless, we affirm.
The evidence introduced at trial shows that on December 7,
2000, Torres was working as a front desk clerk at a Wingate Inn in
Kennesaw. Around 10:00 p.m., a man jumped over the front counter,
pointed a gun at Torres, and said, “Give me the money.” Fearing that
he would be shot, Torres held the hotel’s cash drawer out, and the
man took the money from it. Castlin, who was working as the night
manager and had been in the back office, came around the corner to
see what was going on. The man asked Castlin if there was a safe,
and Castlin told him there was not. The man, however, continued to
point the gun at Castlin and repeatedly asked where the safe was.
The man then hit Torres in the head with the butt of the gun,
causing him to fall to the ground and lose consciousness. When
2 Torres awoke, he heard a gunshot and stood up in time to see
someone jump over the counter and run out. Castlin was lying on
the ground, bleeding from his chest. Torres later described the man
as slim, about five feet and eleven inches or six feet tall, and wielding
a black revolver. Torres was able to give a description of the shooter
to a sketch artist, and the drawing was admitted at trial. Later at
trial, a photograph showing what Randolph looked like in 2000 was
also admitted.
Dixon was a guest at the hotel that evening and was in the
computer room of the lobby when he heard “a bunch of ruckus.”
Dixon looked out to see two men dressed in black and wearing masks
come through the front door. One of the men put his hands down on
the front desk and jumped over it, while the other came into the
computer room and ordered Dixon to get on the floor and to empty
his pockets. Dixon did not see a weapon, but the man had his hand
in his pocket like he was pointing something at Dixon. Fearing that
he could be shot, Dixon gave his money to the man. During this time,
Dixon heard the other man say numerous times, “[O]pen the safe or
3 I’m going to shoot you.” He then heard a gunshot and closed his eyes.
After he heard the men run out of the hotel, Dixon hid for a time and
then fled down the hall to the room of his traveling companion and
called 911.
LeeAnn Bennett, a supervising emergency room nurse, was
also a guest at the hotel that night. When she heard someone yelling
that someone had been shot, she ran out of her room and found
Castlin lying on the floor behind the front desk with an apparent
chest wound. His eyes were open, but he was not breathing
regularly. She administered aid until EMTs arrived. Castlin was
pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital. A medical
examiner concluded that Castlin’s cause of death was a gunshot
wound to the chest.
A crime scene investigator with the Cobb County Police
Department collected a .22-caliber bullet from the scene and lifted
fingerprints from the front counter, which were entered into a
database that only included fingerprints from Georgia, and no
fingerprint match was identified. The Cobb County Police
4 Department continued to periodically run searches of the
fingerprints over the years, and eventually, in July 2012, a search
of the federal fingerprint database maintained by the FBI yielded a
list of possible matches that included Randolph’s name. Following a
manual comparison, a Cobb County Police Department fingerprint
analyst determined that Randolph’s fingerprints matched the set of
prints lifted from the hotel in 2000. The match was later confirmed
by a retired GBI fingerprint expert.2
Cobb County Investigator John Dawes testified that in June
2012, he spoke with a detective in Jacksonville, Florida, concerning
information that the detective had obtained that he believed might
be relevant to an old Cobb County case. The detective explained that
counsel for Ruel Brown, who was facing unrelated charges in
Florida, had represented to him that Brown had information about
2 At trial, Randolph’s counsel argued that Randolph could have left the
fingerprints at some time prior to the shooting. However, the general manager for the Wingate Inn, which had just opened two weeks prior to the shooting, testified that Randolph was not an employee of the hotel, nor had he been a guest at the hotel. She also explained that the surfaces of the lobby, including the front desk counter, were cleaned several times each shift. 5 a shooting that occurred in November or December 2000 at a hotel
north of Atlanta with the word “Win” in the name. Dawes
determined that Brown was likely referring to the unsolved shooting
at the Wingate Inn in Kennesaw. Dawes eventually obtained a
statement from Brown in September 2014, in which Brown
identified Randolph as the shooter. Following his arrest in South
Carolina for the murder of Castlin, Randolph called the mother of
his child while detained in jail there and told her that “they got” him
“for something fourteen years ago” and that his “life [was] changed
now.” A recording of this phone call was played for the jury.
Following a grant of immunity, Brown testified on behalf of the
State at trial.3 Brown explained that he had known Randolph since
Randolph was 13 or 14 years old. In 2000, Brown lived in Columbia,
South Carolina, but traveled back and forth to Atlanta as part of a
sex trafficking ring he was involved in. In December 2000,
Randolph, who was about six feet tall with a slender build at the
3 At the time of trial, Brown was serving a 15-year federal prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. 6 time,4 and another man, whom Brown refused to identify, wanted to
come with Brown to Atlanta, and Brown agreed. Around 10:00 p.m.
on December 7, 2000, the three men went to Cobb County for the
purpose of robbing the Wingate Inn. Randolph, carrying Brown’s
small-caliber handgun, and the third man went inside while Brown
waited outside in the car, parked in a position where he could see
into the lobby. Brown saw Randolph behind the counter with the
gun pointed at a man who had his hands up. Brown saw the flash of
the gun being fired and the man fall backward. Randolph and the
third man, who had been out of view, ran out of the hotel and into
Brown’s car, and Brown immediately drove off toward the interstate.
Brown testified that he was really upset and “was kind of
giving it to” Randolph because the shooting was not part of the plan.
Randolph claimed that he had to shoot because the victim had been
coming toward him. The three of them divided up the money that
they had stolen from the cash register and from Dixon. Brown
initially wanted to drive straight to South Carolina, but decided that
4 Brown testified that he weighed about 300 pounds in 2000.
7 they should stay somewhere nearby so they could find out if the
victim had died. Brown dropped the gun in a storm drain, and then
the three men slept in the car while they waited for the morning
newspaper to be delivered. The following morning, after reading
that the victim had died, they returned to Columbia, South Carolina.
The State also presented evidence of two prior offenses
committed by Randolph. Jagdish Patel testified that on December 4,
2000, three days before the shooting at the Wingate Inn, he was
working at a Blimpie restaurant in Columbia, South Carolina when
a man came in around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. with a gun and said, “Give
me the money. Otherwise I’ll shoot you.” The man then climbed over
the counter and told Patel to lie down on the floor and asked where
the safe was. When Patel told him there was no safe, the man
demanded his wallet. The man then took the money from Patel’s
wallet and the money in the cash register and ran out the back door.
Patel described the man as young, thin, and less than six feet tall. A
fingerprint located on the cash register was found to match
Randolph’s, and Randolph pleaded guilty to armed robbery in
8 connection with that incident and served a ten-year sentence.
Edward McIntosh testified that on April 29, 2011, someone
kicked in the door to his home in Columbia and stole several
televisions, his wife’s jewelry, and a laptop. Fingerprints recovered
from inside the home matched Randolph’s, and the Richland County
Sheriff’s Department took out an arrest warrant for Randolph,
which was still outstanding at the time of trial.
1. Randolph contends that the evidence was insufficient to
support his convictions because the State’s evidence was based in
whole upon the testimony of Brown, an unindicted co-conspirator,
and the testimony was not sufficiently corroborated under OCGA §
24-14-8. We are not persuaded.
Although “[t]he testimony of a single witness is generally
sufficient to establish a fact,” Georgia statutory law provides that,
in “felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice,” the
witness’s testimony alone is not sufficient. OCGA § 24-14-8. “Thus,
when the only witness is an accomplice, corroborating evidence is
required to support a guilty verdict,” Barber v. State, 314 Ga. 759,
9 763 (1) (879 SE2d 428) (2022) (citation and punctuation omitted),
and the jury was so instructed. However, “only slight evidence of
corroboration is required,” and, as long as the corroborating
evidence “directly connects the defendant to the crime or leads to the
inference of guilt,” the “corroboration may consist entirely of
circumstantial evidence.” Id. (citation and punctuation omitted).
Here, the State showed that the physical description of the
assailant with the gun who came into the hotel matched Randolph,
whose fingerprint was found on the front-desk counter at the hotel,
which had just opened two weeks prior and at which Randolph had
been neither a guest nor an employee. The jury was also able to
independently compare an artist’s sketch rendered based on Torres’s
description with a photograph of Randolph taken in 2000. And while
in jail in 2014, Randolph made incriminating statements that were
played for the jury. This evidence was more than sufficient to
corroborate Brown’s testimony as a matter of Georgia statutory law.5
5 Randolph does not assert that the evidence was insufficient as a matter
of constitutional due process, so we do not address that issue. See Davenport
10 See Poole v. State, 312 Ga. 515, 522 (863 SE2d 93) (2021) (accomplice
testimony sufficiently corroborated by physical evidence collected at
the scene, along with other evidence); Johnson v. State, 288 Ga. 803,
805-806 (2) (708 SE2d 331) (2011) (jury was authorized to find that
a witness’s physical description of the shooter matched that of the
defendant and that the accomplice’s testimony was therefore
sufficiently corroborated). Accordingly, this enumeration of error
fails.
2. Randolph also asserts that the trial court erred in admitting
evidence of the 2000 armed robbery and the 2011 home burglary as
other-acts evidence under OCGA § 24-4-404 (b) (“Rule 404 (b)”). To
be admissible under Rule 404 (b), other-acts evidence must satisfy a
three-part test:
(1) the evidence is relevant to an issue in the case other than the defendant’s character, (2) the probative value is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice as required by OCGA § 24-4-403 (“Rule 403”), and (3) there is sufficient proof for a jury to find by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant committed the prior act.
v. State, 309 Ga. 385, 392 (4) (846 SE2d 83) (2020) (holding that we no longer routinely review the sufficiency of the evidence in non-death penalty cases). 11 Lowe v. State, 314 Ga. 788, 792 (2) (a) (879 SE2d 492) (2022) (citation
and punctuation omitted). “We review the trial court’s decision to
admit evidence pursuant to Rule 404 (b) for a clear abuse of
discretion.” Hood v. State, 309 Ga. 493, 499 (2) (847 SE2d 172)
(2020).
Here, following a pretrial hearing, the trial court entered an
order admitting evidence of both the 2000 armed robbery and the
2011 home burglary under Rule 404 (b) for the purposes of proving
intent, motive, plan, or modus operandi.6 In considering the issue
again at the motion for new trial stage, the trial court determined
that the 2000 armed robbery was relevant to show Randolph’s intent
because he pleaded not guilty in this case and maintained his
innocence throughout trial and that it was also relevant to show
plan and modus operandi because of the similarities between the
two robberies. Although the State conceded at the motion for new
6 Although Randolph argues that the trial court improperly admitted the
evidence to show identity, there is no indication in the record that the State sought to introduce the evidence for this purpose or that the trial court included identity as one of the limited purposes for admission of the evidence. 12 trial hearing that the 2011 home burglary evidence should not have
been admitted, the trial court found that its admission was harmless
in light of the overwhelming evidence against Randolph and because
the error caused minimal prejudice, especially in light of the
properly admitted 2000 armed robbery.
(a) Randolph argues that evidence of the 2000 armed robbery
was inadmissible under both the relevance and probative-value-
versus-unfair-prejudice prongs of the Rule 404 (b) test.7 According
to Randolph, the 2000 armed robbery was not relevant to show
intent because it was not committed with the same state of mind as
the charged murder in this case. This argument fails. Because
Randolph entered a plea of not guilty to the armed robbery charges
and did not otherwise take affirmative steps to remove intent as an
issue, he made intent “a material issue” in this case. Hood, 309 Ga.
at 499-500 (2) (citation and punctuation omitted). Under such
circumstances, “the State may prove intent by qualifying Rule 404
7 Randolph does not challenge the third prong with respect to his 2000
armed robbery conviction. 13 (b) evidence.” Naples v. State, 308 Ga. 43, 51 (2) (e) (838 SE2d 780)
(2020) (citation and punctuation omitted). Thus, the trial court did
not abuse its discretion by ruling that the 2000 armed robbery was
relevant to show that Randolph committed the armed robbery in this
case with the same intent. See Olds v. State, 299 Ga. 65, 72 (2) (786
SE2d 633) (2016) (“[E]vidence that an accused committed an
intentional act generally is relevant to show . . . that the same
defendant committed a similar act with the same sort of intent[.]”).
See also Booth v. State, 301 Ga. 678, 683 (3) (804 SE2d 104) (2017)
(“[W]e may consider whether the other acts were relevant to the
issue of intent on any of [the charged] offenses.”).
And “in evaluating the probative value of other-acts evidence
offered to prove intent, we consider the overall similarity between
the other acts and the charged crimes, the other act’s temporal
remoteness, and the prosecutorial need for the evidence.” Thomas v.
State, 314 Ga. 681, 684 (1) (a) (878 SE2d 493) (2022). Randolph
focuses on the alleged dissimilarities between the 2000 armed
robbery and the armed robbery in this case to argue that the
14 probative value of the other-acts evidence was substantially
outweighed by its unfair prejudice. However, in both incidents
Randolph robbed a business at night by vaulting over the counter to
confront the employee with a small handgun and asking about a
safe. And the two events occurred only three days apart. These
similarities and temporal proximity between the two robberies
demonstrate that the probative value of the 2000 armed robbery
evidence to prove Randolph’s intent to commit the armed robbery in
this case was significant. See, e.g., Hood, 309 Ga. at 501 (2) (evidence
of other robbery was probative of defendant’s intent to participate in
charged crimes of felony murder predicated on armed robbery,
aggravated assault, and related crimes because of, inter alia,
similarities between the incidents, which occurred less than four
months apart from one another); Fleming v. State, 306 Ga. 240, 248
(3) (b) (830 SE2d 129) (2019) (the other-acts evidence had a high
probative value because, inter alia, the other act had significant
similarities and occurred within less than one year of the charged
crimes).
15 Although the evidence of the 2000 armed robbery was certainly
prejudicial to Randolph, its prejudicial value was fairly low, given
that no one was physically harmed in the course of the robbery, and
moreover, Rule 403 requires the balancing of the probative value of
the evidence against the danger of unfair prejudice. “Rule 403’s
exclusionary force is meant to be applied sparingly — primarily
when the other-acts evidence has scant or cumulative probative
force, dragged in by the heels for the sake of its prejudicial effect.”
Hounkpatin v. State, 313 Ga. 789, 796 (2) (a) (873 SE2d 201) (2022)
(citation and punctuation omitted). Given the probative value of the
other-acts evidence here weighed against the relatively low danger
of unfair prejudice, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in
admitting evidence of the 2000 armed robbery. See id. Having
determined that the evidence was admissible as to intent, we need
not examine whether it was also admissible as to motive, plan, or
modus operandi. See Bradshaw v. State, 296 Ga. 650, 657 (3) n.5
16 (769 SE2d 892) (2015).8
(b) On appeal, the State concedes that the 2011 home burglary
should not have been admitted under Rule 404 (b). Assuming
without deciding that the trial court abused its discretion in
admitting evidence of the 2011 home burglary, this evidentiary error
warrants reversal only if it was harmful. See Morrell v. State, 313
Ga. 247, 261 (2) (c) (869 SE2d 447) (2022) (“It is fundamental that
harm as well as error must be shown for reversal.”). “The test for
determining nonconstitutional harmless error is whether it is highly
probable that the error did not contribute to the verdict.” Thomas,
314 Ga. at 686 (1) (c) (citation and punctuation omitted). In making
this determination, “we review the record de novo, and we weigh the
evidence as we would expect reasonable jurors to have done so as
opposed to viewing it all in the light most favorable to the jury’s
verdict.” Id. (citation and punctuation omitted).
Here, several witnesses gave relatively brief testimony about
8 We note also that Randolph has not challenged the trial court’s instruction regarding the purposes for which the other-acts evidence could be considered. 17 the incident that was not especially prejudicial, given that, again,
no one was physically harmed in the course of the burglary,9 and the
State made no mention of it during closing argument.10 See Stafford
v. State, 312 Ga. 811, 817 (2) (b) (865 SE2d 116) (2021) (any error in
admission of Rule 404 (b) evidence was harmless in part because the
State did not mention or rely on the evidence in closing argument);
Taylor v. State, 306 Ga. 277, 283 (2) (830 SE2d 90) (2019) (any error
in admitting Rule 404 (b) evidence was harmless where the State
spent a minimal amount of time eliciting evidence concerning the
incident and made no mention of it during its closing argument). In
addition, the other evidence in this case — including Brown’s
testimony that Randolph was the shooter, the presence of
Randolph’s fingerprint at the scene, and the properly admitted 2000
9 The homeowner did not identify Randolph, but testified that he had not
given him permission to enter his home. Two witnesses testified as to their collection and analysis of the fingerprints found in the home that matched Randolph’s. A final witness briefly testified regarding the warrant for Randolph’s arrest, which remained open. 10 Although Randolph argues that the jury was told that he had not been
arrested or punished in connection with the burglary, the jury was also told that the arrest warrant was still active, meaning that he could still face punishment in South Carolina. 18 armed robbery evidence — was strong. See Priester v. State, 316 Ga.
133, 137 (2) (886 SE2d 805) (2023) (erroneously admitted Rule 404
(b) evidence not harmful where the properly admitted evidence
against the defendant was strong).
The record also shows that the trial court twice instructed the
jury that it could only consider the other-acts evidence for the
limited Rule 404 (b) purposes; that it could not conclude from the
evidence that Randolph had a propensity to commit crimes; and that
Randolph was on trial only for the charges listed in the indictment.
Thus, Randolph cannot show that it is highly probable that any error
in admitting the 2011 home burglary evidence contributed to the
jury’s verdict, and this enumeration of error fails. See Pritchett v.
State, 314 Ga. 767, 780 (2) (c) (879 SE2d 436) (2022) (concluding
erroneous admission of other-acts evidence was harmless in part
because, in considering whether the admission of other-acts
evidence was harmless, “we presume that the jury followed [the trial
court’s] instructions and did not use the other-acts evidence
improperly to support that [Appellant] had a propensity towards
19 violence”).
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
Decided August 21, 2023.
Murder. Cobb Superior Court. Before Judge Flournoy.
Star Law, F. Michael Starosto, for appellant.
Flynn D. Broady, Jr., District Attorney, Linda J. Dunikoski,
Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General,
Beth A. Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior
Assistant Attorney General, Matthew B. Crowder, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.