Richardson v. State

• Court: Supreme Court of Georgia
• Decided: August 26, 2025
• Docket: S25A0457
• Status: Published

Opinion

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: August 26, 2025

S25A0457. RICHARDSON v. THE STATE.

PINSON, Justice.

Dominique Richardson was convicted of malice murder for the

shooting death of Taylor Holcombe. 1 On appeal, he contends that the

evidence was not sufficient and that the trial court abused its dis-

cretion in admitting an audio recording of a witness’s statement to

1 The crimes happened on October 24, 2015. Richardson was indicted by

a DeKalb County grand jury in June 2016, on four counts: malice murder, fel- ony murder, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the com- mission of a felony. He was tried by a jury from March 13 to March 17, 2017. The jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts. The trial court sentenced Rich- ardson to life in prison without the possibility of parole on the malice murder count. The aggravated assault count merged into the malice murder count. The trial court purported to merge the felony murder count, but the felony murder conviction was actually vacated as a matter of law. See Heade v. State, 312 Ga. 19, 29–30 (2021) (“When a valid guilty verdict is returned on both malice mur- der and felony murder of the same victim, the defendant should be sentenced for the malice murder, and the alternative felony murder count stands vacated by operation of law.” (cleaned up)). The trial court imposed a five-year sentence for possession of a firearm consecutive to the life sentence. Richardson filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied. Richardson then timely ap- pealed to this Court. The case was docketed to this Court’s April 2025 term and submitted for a decision on the briefs. the police as a prior inconsistent statement. These claims fail. The

evidence was sufficient as a matter of federal due process and Geor-

gia statutory law, and any error in admitting the recorded statement

was harmless. So Richardson’s convictions are affirmed.

1. The evidence presented at trial showed the following. At the

time of Holcombe’s death, she and Richardson had been dating for a

few weeks. On October 24, 2015, Richardson and Cedric Porter went

to the grocery store where Holcombe worked. Holcombe gave Rich-

ardson the keys to her car, and the two men left. The pair returned

later in the day to pick up Holcombe from work. The group then

traveled to drop Porter off at an apartment where he was staying,

and they planned to meet again in the evening to buy marijuana

together.

When Richardson and Holcombe picked up Porter later in the

day, however, Porter said that the mood between the couple had

changed. They were quiet, and Porter felt “tension” between them.

The trio stopped at a gas station along their route, and Richardson

got out of the car and withdrew cash from an ATM using Holcombe’s

2 debit card. They started driving. Porter testified that, a few minutes

later, Richardson made a sudden right turn and pulled out a gun,

pointing it at Holcombe. He said that Holcombe then jumped out of

the car and ran down the roadway.

Richardson got out too. He fired twice at Holcombe, and she fell

to the ground. Richardson then got back in the car, pointed his gun

at Porter, and told him that he would kill Porter’s family if he told

anyone what happened. He also said that he would get rid of the gun

and the car. Porter testified that Richardson then dropped him off

and told him to go back to the apartment where Richardson was

staying. Porter testified that he went to the apartment and that

Richardson returned sometime later that evening.

Officers were eventually called to the scene where Holcombe’s

body remained. They found her body in a state that was consistent

with having been run over by a vehicle after she had fallen to the

ground. Police also found Holcombe’s car, which had been burned.

According to Porter, Richardson thought the police were on to

him. He thought that calls he began receiving were from undercover

3 police officers. So Richardson forced Porter to hand over his phone

for Richardson to use. Detectives testified that an extraction of Por-

ter’s phone showed searches for information on wiping fingerprints

off a gun, news stories about Holcombe’s death, and lawyers.

After the night of the shooting, Richardson also visited a friend,

Dontavious Davis. Davis initially testified that Richardson came to

his home and told him that Holcombe was missing. When asked if

Richardson said anything else, Davis responded that he “[could]n’t

recall.” After more questions from the State, Davis testified that

Richardson said that “the gun went off in the car and [Holcombe] got

shot in the side.” When asked if Richardson confessed to shooting

her anywhere else, Davis responded “I think in the head.”

After this testimony, the State introduced, without objection, a

prior written statement that Davis had given to the police. That

statement recounted that Richardson said he shot Holcombe in the

side and in the head. Davis testified that the written statement was

accurate as to what Richardson had told him. In addition to the writ-

ten statement, Davis had spoken with the police, and that interview

4 was recorded. That audio recording was later admitted as a prior

inconsistent statement over defense counsel’s objection and played

for the jury. In the recording, Davis told officers that Richardson

“said she’s dead” that he “said he shot her in the car,” “that she

jumped out of the car,” and that Richardson “shot [her] in the head

and shot [her] in the side.”

The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy of Holcombe

testified that the immediate cause of death was blunt force trauma

to the pelvis and head caused by a vehicle running Holcombe over,2

but that a gunshot wound to the head also contributed to her death.

Richardson testified in his own defense at trial. He claimed

that Holcombe had bought marijuana from Porter in the past and

that the two of them had an argument that day. Richardson also

claimed that, after stopping at the gas station with Porter and Hol-

combe, he went to a high school football game. According to Richard-

son, Porter and Holcombe dropped him off at the game and then left

2 No evidence was presented at trial that it was Richardson who ran Hol-

combe over. And Davis testified that Richardson told him another car had done so. 5 together in her car. He testified that Porter, alone, later returned

and joined him at the game. Richardson denied telling Davis he shot

Holcombe and further testified that Porter had confessed to killing

Holcombe.

The defense also called an expert on cell phone location data.

The expert explained the difficulty in getting a precise location from

this data. On cross-examination, however, the expert testified that

Richardson’s cell phone location data made it “possible but highly

unlikely” that Richardson’s phone was at the football stadium at the

time of the crimes as he claimed. The expert also agreed that Rich-

ardson’s phone was communicating with a tower in range of where

the crimes happened at the time they happened.

2. Richardson challenges the sufficiency of the evidence as a

matter of federal due process and Georgia statutory law. He also

contends that there was not sufficient evidence of his guilt because

accomplice testimony was not corroborated. We address these suffi-

ciency arguments in turn.

(a) In addressing whether the evidence presented at trial was

6 sufficient as a matter of due process under the United States Con-

stitution, we consider “whether any rational trier of fact could have

found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Weston v.

State, 321 Ga. 554, 555–56 (2025) (quotation marks omitted). In do-

ing so, we view the evidence “in the light most favorable to the ver-

dicts,” and we do not “reweigh evidence or resolve conflicts in testi-

mony.” Jackson v. State, 311 Ga. 626, 629–30 (2021) (quotation

marks omitted).

Under this standard, the evidence was sufficient to support

Richardson’s convictions. To convict Richardson of murder, the State

had to produce evidence sufficient for the jury to find beyond a rea-

sonable doubt that Richardson “unlawfully and with malice afore-

thought, either express or implied, cause[d] the death of another hu-

man being.” OCGA § 16-5-1(a). See also Scoggins v. State, 317 Ga.

832, 836 (2023) (“For a malice murder conviction, the requisite crim-

inal intent is that of malice, which incorporates the intent to kill.”).

Porter testified to his firsthand observation of Richardson shooting

Holcombe in the head, and the jury was free to credit his account of

7 what happened that night over Richardson’s. See Graham v. State,

301 Ga. 675, 677 (2017) (“[I]t is the role of the jury to resolve conflicts

in the evidence and to determine the credibility of witnesses, and

the resolution of such conflicts adversely to the defendant does not

render the evidence insufficient.” (quotation marks omitted)). There

was also testimony from a medical examiner about the cause of Hol-

combe’s death, cell phone location data placing Richardson’s phone

in the vicinity of the crime scene around the time it occurred, and

Davis’s testimony that Richardson confided in him about killing Hol-

combe. And the jury was authorized to believe Porter’s testimony

that Richardson used Porter’s phone to search the internet for infor-

mation related to the murder. See id. All of this evidence was suffi-

cient to authorize a rational jury to conclude beyond a reasonable

doubt that Richardson killed Holcombe with the requisite intent.

The evidence also authorized them to find beyond a reasonable

doubt that Richardson committed the murder with a firearm, which

was sufficient to convict Richardson of possession of a firearm dur-

8 ing the commission of a felony. See OCGA § 16-11-106(b)(1) (unlaw-

ful for any person to have “on . . . his or her person a firearm . . .

during the commission of” a felony against the person of another).

(b) As a matter of Georgia statutory law, a conviction based

solely on circumstantial evidence may be sustained only if the facts

proved at trial “exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that

of the guilt of the accused.” OCGA § 24-14-6. Richardson contends

that his conviction was based solely on circumstantial evidence and

that this evidence did not exclude the reasonable hypothesis that

Porter killed Holcombe.

This sufficiency claim fails too. Code section 24-14-6’s standard

for convictions based solely on circumstantial evidence does not ap-

ply if the State presents direct evidence of the defendant’s guilt. See

Troutman v. State, 320 Ga. 489, 492 (2024). And eyewitness testi-

mony, like Porter’s testimony that he saw Richardson shoot and kill

Holcombe, is just such direct evidence. See Bradley v. State, 318 Ga.

142, 144 (2024).

(c) In felony cases, the testimony of an accomplice alone is not

9 sufficient to establish a fact, unless the accomplice’s testimony is

corroborated. OCGA § 24-14-8. The trial court instructed the jury on

these principles at Richardson’s request. On appeal, he does not

challenge the jury instructions, but he now contends that the evi-

dence was not sufficient under OCGA § 24-14-8 because Porter was

an accomplice and his testimony was not corroborated.

This claim fails. “[W]hen the issue of whether a witness was an

accomplice was submitted to the jury and there was evidence allow-

ing the jury to find that the witness was not an accomplice, corrobo-

rating evidence is not required to sustain a guilty verdict on appeal.”

Caldwell v. State, 313 Ga. 640, 644 (2022). Davis testified that Rich-

ardson confessed to killing Holcombe alone. Moreover, there was no

evidence that showed that Porter assisted in the commission of the

crime. Richardson’s own account was that Porter did the crime

alone, not that he was an accomplice. Without such evidence, the

jury, which was instructed on accomplice corroboration, was author-

ized to find that Porter was not an accomplice. Because evidence is

sufficient to sustain a conviction “without corroboration” when “the

10 evidence authorizes a jury to find that the witness was not an ac-

complice,” this claim fails. Id. See State v. Grier, 309 Ga. 452, 454,

456 (2020) (jury authorized to conclude witness was not an accom-

plice where evidence showed that the witness got in the car with the

gunman after a shooting); Caldwell, 313 Ga. at 641–42, 645 (jury

could find that witness who went to drug deal with defendant did

not share intent to kill and thus was not an accomplice).

3. Richardson claims that the trial court abused its discretion

in admitting an audio recording of Davis’s statement to the police.

Although Davis ultimately testified that Richardson confessed

to shooting Holcombe in the head, Davis initially testified that all he

could remember was Richardson saying that Holcombe was missing.

And on cross-examination, Davis agreed with defense counsel that

his testimony was based on both what Richardson had told him and

“things that [he] heard from other people or from the news.” So the

State sought to introduce Davis’s recorded statement to confirm that

Richardson had told Davis about what happened. The trial court ad-

mitted the audio recording as a prior inconsistent statement during

11 the testimony of a detective. Richardson claims that was error.

Even assuming Richardson is right, any error was harmless. A

non-constitutional error is harmless if it is “highly probable that the

error did not contribute to the verdict.” Haufler v. State, 315 Ga. 712,

718 (2023) (quotation marks omitted). When considering whether an

error is harmless under this standard, we “review the evidence de

novo and weigh it as a reasonable juror would, rather than review-

ing it in a light most favorable to upholding the jury’s verdicts of

guilty.” Moore v. State, 315 Ga. 263, 271 (2022) (quotation marks

omitted).3 It is highly probable that the admission of the audio re-

cording did not contribute to the verdict in this case. The properly

3 Richardson argues that we must ignore Davis’s trial testimony in our

harmless error analysis because the audio recording improperly “bolstered” that statement. He points to past cases where we have said that “[w]here im- proper bolstering has occurred, [the harmless error analysis] must be made without reliance on the testimony that was improperly bolstered.” McGarity v. State, 311 Ga. 158, 167 (2021). But we have only applied this rule when a trial court admits testimony as a prior consistent statement. E.g., id. at 163–68; Glover v. State, 296 Ga. 13, 16 (2014); Allen v. State, 315 Ga. 524, 534–36 (2023). And we have cabined the rule to that context. See Harmon v. State, 319 Ga. 259, 266 n.7 (2024) (rule not applicable to ineffective assistance of counsel claim); Tavarez v. State, 319 Ga. 480, 485 (2024) (same). We similarly decline to expand this rule to cases like this, where statements were admitted as in- consistent with trial testimony. 12 admitted evidence against Richardson was very strong. Davis testi-

fied that Richardson confessed to shooting Holcombe, Porter re-

counted his firsthand observation of the murder in great detail, Da-

vis’s written statement recounted Richardson’s confession as well,

and cell phone location data placed Richardson at the scene of the

crime at the time it happened. Davis’s recorded statement reiterated

those same details. Given the strong evidence of Richardson’s guilt,

and with only Richardson’s self-serving testimony supporting an-

other version of events, it was highly probable that admitting the

largely cumulative audio recording did not contribute to the jury’s

verdict. See Eubanks v. State, 317 Ga. 563, 583–84 (2023); Virger v.

State, 305 Ga. 281, 293–94 (2019).

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.