Smith v. State
This text of 306 Ga. 556 (Smith 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.
Opinion
306 Ga. 556 FINAL COPY
S19A0694. SMITH v. THE STATE.
BETHEL, Justice.
Following his conviction for the murder of Patricia Burley,
Corey Smith appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial,
arguing that the trial court erred in denying his motion because he
received ineffective assistance of counsel at trial. We disagree and
affirm. 1
Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence
presented at trial shows the following. On the morning of August
1 The crimes occurred in August 2010. On March 6, 2012, a Richmond County grand jury indicted Smith for malice murder and felony murder predicated on the aggravated assault of Patricia Burley. At a March 2012 trial, a jury found Smith guilty of both charges. The trial court purported to merge the felony murder count into the malice murder count, but the felony murder count was actually vacated by operation of law. See Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369 (5) (434 SE2d 479) (1993). Smith was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Smith filed a motion for new trial on April 4, 2012, and he amended that motion on February 2, 2016. Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion (as amended) on August 17, 2018. Smith filed a notice of appeal to this Court on August 20, 2018, and the case was docketed in this Court to the April 2019 term and submitted for a decision on the briefs. 22, 2010, 54-year-old Burley was staying at the house of her
neighbor, Mary Williams. Burley had Down syndrome and
according to her cousin, who cared for her, had the mental capacity
of a seven-year-old child. Burley was on the front porch with
Williams’ grandson when Smith approached and began talking to
Burley. When the grandson asked Burley who Smith was, she
replied that Smith was her boyfriend.
The grandson went inside the house and told Williams that a
man was on the front porch with Burley. Williams came outside,
and Smith introduced himself after Williams asked him his name.
Williams returned inside, but, when she came out a little bit later,
Smith was “hugging on” Burley. Williams asked Burley to come
inside. Later that evening at around 10:00 p.m., Burley’s cousin
called Williams and asked for Burley to return home. However,
Burley did not return home.
Williams’ grandson testified that when Burley left the house
that evening, she was walking with Smith away from her home,
toward her church. Another neighbor witnessed Burley walking
2 hand-in-hand with Smith through some bushes near his home.
Several days later, Burley’s body was discovered next to a trash can
in a wooded lot some distance away. An autopsy revealed that
Burley had died from asphyxiation. Smith’s partial palm print and
a fingerprint were found on that trash can, and two witnesses
informed police that they had observed Smith pushing a trash can
near that area. A couple of days before Burley’s body was found,
Smith was seen scrubbing his hands and wiping his body down with
water at a nearby gas station. Investigators later found Burley’s
DNA on Smith’s shorts.
Smith was arrested for Burley’s murder. Prior to trial, Smith
filed a special plea of mental incompetence and a notice of intent to
raise insanity or mental incompetence. The court ordered a
competency-to-stand-trial evaluation and a criminal-responsibility
evaluation of insanity. A special jury trial on the issue of
competency was held on March 12, 2012. At that trial, the evaluator
testified that Smith suffered from schizophrenia with paranoid
subtype. However, the evaluator did not testify that Smith was
3 unable to distinguish between right and wrong or that he was
operating under a delusional compulsion at the time of the offense.
After the competency trial, the jury returned a verdict against
Smith’s special plea of incompetence. Before his trial, Smith
requested jury charges on mental illness that tracked the language
pertaining to “guilty but mentally ill” set forth in OCGA § 17-7-131
and on considering mental illness with the evidence as a whole.
Smith ultimately presented a defense of innocence, rather than
insanity or mental illness, and the charges were not given.2 Smith
was found guilty. Although Smith does not challenge the sufficiency
of the evidence supporting his conviction, as is our practice in
murder cases, we have reviewed the record and conclude that the
evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient for
a rational trier of fact to find Smith guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
of the crime for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia,
443 U. S. 307, 318-319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
2 The charge conference was not transcribed and the record does not
indicate why the requested charges ultimately were not given. 4 Smith argues that he received ineffective assistance because
his trial counsel failed to request a jury instruction on insanity or
mental illness as set forth in OCGA § 17-7-131. We disagree.
In order to succeed on his claim of ineffective assistance, [Smith] must prove both that his trial counsel’s performance was deficient and that there is a reasonable probability that the trial result would have been different if not for the deficient performance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (104 SC[t] 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984). If an appellant fails to meet his or her burden of proving either prong of the Strickland test, the reviewing court does not have to examine the other prong. Id. at 697 (IV); Fuller v. State, 277 Ga. 505 (3) (591 SE2d 782) (2004).
Wright v. State, 291 Ga. 869, 870 (2) (734 SE2d 876) (2012).
“Decisions on requests to charge involve trial tactics to which we
must afford substantial latitude, and they provide no grounds for
reversal unless such tactical decisions are so patently unreasonable
that no competent attorney would have chosen them.” (Citation and
punctuation omitted.) Mitchell v. State, 282 Ga. 416, 420 (6) (d) (651
SE2d 49) (2007).
Here, Smith generally asserts that the outcome of his trial
would have been different had trial counsel requested and the jury
5 received an instruction under OCGA § 17-7-131. However, the
record indicates that trial counsel actually requested a charge on
guilty but mentally ill that tracked that portion of OCGA § 17-7-131,
although the record does not indicate why the charge was not given.
Even assuming trial counsel withdrew her request or waived the
charge, Smith’s trial counsel testified at the motion for new trial
hearing that she made a strategic decision not to pursue the
affirmative defenses of insanity or mental illness. This was because
Smith maintained that he did not commit the murder and because
the evaluator had not concluded that Smith was insane at the time
of the murder. Indeed, Smith steadfastly maintained his innocence
even at the motion for new trial hearing.
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