Teasley v. State

749 S.E.2d 710, 293 Ga. 758, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 3085, 2013 WL 5508603, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 794
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedOctober 7, 2013
DocketS13A1231
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 749 S.E.2d 710 (Teasley 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
Teasley v. State, 749 S.E.2d 710, 293 Ga. 758, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 3085, 2013 WL 5508603, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 794 (Ga. 2013).

Opinion

NAHMIAS, Justice.

Appellant Emory Teasley and his brothers Christopher (“Chris”) and Tyrone Teasley were indicted and tried together and found guilty of all charges: the malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault of James Riden; the aggravated assault of Markez Jones; possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime; and tampering with evidence.1 We previously affirmed Chris’s convictions, see Teasley v. State, 288 Ga. 468 (704 SE2d 800) (2010) (raising only a sufficiency of the evidence argument), and we now affirm Appellant’s convictions as well.

[759]*7591. In Chris’s appeal, we summarized the evidence presented at trial as follows:

Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that Jones received a call informing him that his 15-year-old cousin Jarvis Evans had been beaten by [Chris] and his two brothers and that [Chris] and Tyrone held Evans while [Appellant] hit him. Later on the same day, [Appellant] called Jones, who said “it’s on,” and [Appellant] responded, “One of y’all going to die.” [Chris] drove his brothers through Evans’ neighborhood where they saw Jones and his uncle James Riden in the latter’s vehicle, slowing down and staring the Teasley brothers down. Tyrone retrieved his gun from his mother’s apartment where [Chris] and [Appellant] lived. [Chris] then drove his brothers to a local convenience store and pool hall [the Big H].
After arriving at the pool hall, Tyrone stated that, if Jones and Riden came there with their complaint, he would kill somebody. [Appellant] said for somebody to call them and send them up there. Jones received a phone call during which he could hear [Appellant] saying to tell them to come on up there. The caller informed Jones that the Teasley brothers were at the pool hall. Riden drove Jones to the pool hall where Jones asked [Appellant] why he jumped on Evans. [Appellant] cursed at Jones, who hit [Appellant] in the jaw. Although Tyrone testified that his brothers did not know that he had a gun, [Appellant] told Tyrone to shoot Jones. As Tyrone was firing his gun and Jones was running away, [Appellant] said to shoot Riden, and Jones then saw his uncle drop to the ground, fatally wounded. [Chris], who had been near [Appellant] just before the shooting, ran to his car and drove his brothers away from the scene of the crimes. Tyrone told [Chris] where to drive and threw the gun out the car window into a wooded area.

Teasley at 468-469. Although the Teasleys claimed that Tyrone shot at Riden and Jones in self-defense, several eyewitnesses said that they did not see either victim with a gun, and no gun was found on Riden or Jones or at the crime scene.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence presented at trial and summarized above was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to reject Appellant’s justification defense and find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, [760]*76061 LE2d 560) (1979). See also OCGA § 16-2-20 (parties to a crime); Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32, 33 (673 SE2d 223) (2009) (“ ‘It was for the jury to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.’ ” (citation omitted)).

2. During the trial, at which Chris did not testify, the court admitted into evidence statements that Chris and Appellant had made to the police shortly after the shootings. Each statement was redacted to eliminate any mention of co-defendants.2 Appellant contends that because Chris’s statement was inconsistent with his own statement, the jury could not possibly follow the court’s limiting instruction to consider Chris’s statement only against Chris, resulting in a violation of Appellant’s Sixth Amendment right of confrontation under Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (88 SCt 1620, 20 LE2d 476) (1968). We disagree.

“ ‘A defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to be confronted with the witnesses against him is violated when co-defendants are tried jointly and the testimonial statement of a co-defendant who does not testify at trial is used to implicate the other co-defendant in the crime.’ ” Herbert v. State, 288 Ga. 843, 848 (708 SE2d 260) (2011) (citing Bruton). However, it is well-settled that if a co-defendant’s statement does not refer to the existence of the defendant and is accompanied by jury instructions limiting its use to the case against the co-defendant giving the statement, the defendant’s confrontation right is not violated even though, in light of the other evidence at trial, the jury might infer from the contents of the co-defendant’s statement that the defendant was involved in the crimes. See Colton v. State, 292 Ga. 509, 511 (739 SE2d 380) (2013). See also Gray v. Maryland, 523 U. S. 185, 191 (118 SCt 1151, 140 LE2d 294) (1998) (holding that “ ‘the Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a [761]*761nontestifying codefendant’s confession with a proper limiting instruction when, as here, the confession is redacted to eliminate not only the defendant’s name, but any reference to his or her existence’ ” (citation omitted)).

Chris’s statement does not mention Appellant or implicate him by itself, and the trial court gave a proper limiting instruction. Thus, even though Chris’s statement was inconsistent to some extent with Appellant’s statement and the jury might have been able to infer from other evidence that Appellant was involved in the crimes, the admission of Chris’s statement did not violate Appellant’s right of confrontation.

Appellant also complains that the prosecutor’s comment during his opening statement that Chris and Appellant gave separate statements that did not match improperly asked the jury to consider Chris’s statement directly against Appellant, undoing the effect of the trial court’s later limiting instruction. However, Appellant did not make a contemporaneous objection on the ground that the prosecutor was improperly linking the brothers’ statements, and he is therefore procedurally barred from raising this complaint on appeal. See Johnson v. State, 292 Ga. 785, 787 (741 SE2d 627) (2013).

In any event, any error in the prosecutor’s opening statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Ardis v. State, 290 Ga. 58, 62 (718 SE2d 526) (2011) (explaining that the test for determining whether a Bruton violation is harmless is whether the constitutional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt). In his opening remarks, the prosecutor did not specify any inconsistencies between the two brothers’ statements; the trial court later ruled that the prosecutor could not do so during the trial or in closing argument; and the prosecutor complied with that ruling. In addition, Appellant’s statement was much more inconsistent with the other evidence in the case, including Tyrone’s testimony that only Riden had a gun, and overall the State presented a strong case against Appellant.

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Bluebook (online)
749 S.E.2d 710, 293 Ga. 758, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 3085, 2013 WL 5508603, 2013 Ga. LEXIS 794, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/teasley-v-state-ga-2013.