Watson v. State

763 S.E.2d 122, 328 Ga. App. 832, 2014 WL 3973185, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 582
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedAugust 15, 2014
DocketA14A1039
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 763 S.E.2d 122 (Watson v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Watson v. State, 763 S.E.2d 122, 328 Ga. App. 832, 2014 WL 3973185, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 582 (Ga. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

BARNES, Presiding Judge.

A jury found Everett Thomas Watson guilty of two counts of felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and the trial court denied his motion for a new trial. On appeal, Watson contends that the trial court erred in rejecting his written request to charge the jury on the lesser included offense of misdemeanor obstruction. Watson further contends that the trial court erred in excluding evidence that he had previously been the victim of a home invasion, which he sought to introduce to support his affirmative defense that he used force to defend his habitation. Discerning no error, we affirm.

“Following a criminal conviction, the defendant is no longer presumed innocent, and we view the evidence in the light most favorable to sustain the verdict.” Anthony v. State, 317 Ga. App. 807 (732 SE2d 845) (2012). So viewed, the evidence showed that Watson lived with his girlfriend in an apartment in Whitfield County. In April 2012, a police detective interviewed Watson and his girlfriend at their apartment regarding their alleged involvement in a drug crime. During the interview, the detective observed numerous weapons near a coffee table in the living room. When the detective questioned Watson, he became verbally aggressive and confrontational, leading the detective to terminate the interview and leave the apartment.

[833]*833Around 11:00 a.m. on May 4, 2012, the detective returned to the apartment with his partner to serve an arrest warrant on Watson’s girlfriend. Both wore plain clothes but had their badges displayed. The detective’s partner knocked on the front door, and when Watson approached and asked who was there, the partner gave only his first name. Watson did not open the door, but after a few more minutes passed with continued knocking, his girlfriend came to the door and started to open it, but then attempted to shut it when she saw the detective and his partner standing there. However, the detective and his partner stopped the girlfriend from shutting the door and entered the living room, verbally identified themselves as law enforcement officers, and informed the girlfriend that they had a warrant for her arrest. Watson was standing in the living room and saw the entire interaction.

After the detective showed the girlfriend the arrest warrant, Watson suddenly lunged toward the coffee table and grabbed a can of what was later confirmed to be pepper spray. Because he was focused on the girlfriend at the time, the detective did not see Watson grab the pepper spray, but his partner saw Watson do it and moved to intercept him. The detective’s partner and Watson began to fight for control over the can, and the detective immediately joined his partner in the struggle once he realized what was happening. Although the detective ordered Watson to stop struggling and put his hands behind his back, Watson continued to resist and was able to drag the detective and his partner over to a couch. Watson dropped the pepper spray, but then repeatedly attempted to reach for something toward the edge of the couch. The detective and his partner later discovered that a hammer was located at the side of the couch where Watson had been reaching.

As Watson continued to struggle and reach for the hammer, the detective drew his firearm and threatened to shoot Watson if he failed to comply with the detective’s orders. At that point, Watson stopped resisting the detective and his partner and stopped reaching for the hammer at the side of the couch. Watson told them, “You guys didn’t have to fight me like that. ... I wasn’t trying to get a weapon. I was trying to get pepper spray.”

Watson was arrested and indicted on two counts of felony obstruction of a law enforcement officer. The indictment alleged that on May 4, 2012, Watson had knowingly and wilfully obstructed the detective and his partner, who were acting in the lawful discharge of their official duties, by “offering violence” to their persons “by grabbing a [834]*834can of pepper spray, raising it toward [them], and reaching toward another weapon.”1

At the ensuing jury trial, the detective and his partner testified to the events as set forth above, while Watson testified to a different version of events. Watson denied having ever spoken with the detective on a previous occasion in April 2012, and he denied knowing that the two men who entered his apartment were law enforcement officers, claiming that medication that he had taken had made him “real groggy and disoriented.” Watson also denied lunging at or grabbing the pepper spray or reaching for any weapons by the couch. According to Watson, he had simply “looked over toward” the coffee table where the pepper spray was located, whereupon the detective and his partner grabbed him and jerked him over to the couch. Watson denied attempting to punch or kick the detective or his partner or making any effort to fight them, instead admitting only that he had tried to “brace” himself to keep the weight of the detective and his partner off of him on the couch because he had leg, back, and hip problems.

Watson’s girlfriend testified that she began screaming when the detective and his partner forced their way into the apartment to serve the arrest warrant, at which point Watson came back into the living room and “thought [she] was being hurt” because “he didn’t know what was going on.” According to the girlfriend, Watson was on several medications, including pain pills and sleeping pills, which affected him in the morning hours. She testified that Watson moved toward the pepper spray that was sitting on the coffee table in an effort to defend her from what he mistakenly believed was a home invasion, leading the detective and his partner to intercept Watson before he could reach the pepper spray and to slam him down on the couch. At another point in her testimony, Watson’s girlfriend testified that he had simply “look[ed]” in the direction of the pepper spray, and the detective and his partner had “assumed he was going after [it]” and grabbed him and forced him over to the couch.

[835]*835Watson also sought to introduce evidence that he had previously-been assaulted by a third party forcing his way into his residence in an effort to support a defense-of-habitation affirmative defense. The State objected, and the trial court sustained the objection and excluded the evidence on the ground that it was irrelevant.

Additionally, Watson filed a written request to charge on misdemeanor obstruction. The trial court declined to give the charge, concluding that there was no evidence to support it. But the trial court did give several of Watson’s requested charges, including a charge on the affirmative defense of mistake of fact.

After hearing the conflicting testimony from the witnesses and the charge of the court, the jury found Watson guilty on both counts of the indictment. Watson filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court denied. This appeal followed.

1. Watson contends that the trial court erred by rejecting his written request for a jury charge on misdemeanor obstruction of a law enforcement officer as a lesser included offense of felony obstruction. We disagree.

Misdemeanor obstruction “requires proof that the defendant knowingly and wilfully obstructed or hindered a law enforcement officer in the lawful discharge of his official duties.” Jones v. State, 276 Ga. App. 66, 68 (622 SE2d 425) (2005). See OCGA § 16-10-24

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
763 S.E.2d 122, 328 Ga. App. 832, 2014 WL 3973185, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS 582, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/watson-v-state-gactapp-2014.