Wickerson v. State

743 S.E.2d 509, 321 Ga. App. 844, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1636, 2013 WL 2233945, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 421
CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
DecidedMay 22, 2013
DocketA13A0145
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 743 S.E.2d 509 (Wickerson 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
Wickerson v. State, 743 S.E.2d 509, 321 Ga. App. 844, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1636, 2013 WL 2233945, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 421 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

BARNES, Presiding Judge.

Based upon allegations that he and two accomplices robbed four victims at gunpoint in the course of one evening in DeKalb County, Cedric Wickerson was indicted, tried, and convicted of multiple counts of armed robbery and aggravated assault. The trial court denied his motion for new trial. On appeal, Wickerson contends that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he was involved in the robbery of the second and third victims or to prove that venue for the crimes was proper in DeKalb County. He further contends that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance.

[845]*845For the reasons discussed below, the evidence was sufficient to support the verdicts, and Wickerson failed to demonstrate that his trial counsel was ineffective. However, the trial court erred in failing to merge one of Wickerson’s aggravated assault convictions into one of his armed robbery convictions for sentencing purposes. Accordingly, we affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand for resentencing.1

Following a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict. See Vaughn v. State, 301 Ga. App. 391 (687 SE2d 651) (2009). So viewed, the evidence showed that on the night of December 1, 2008, within the span of approximately twenty minutes, four victims were robbed at gunpoint within a three-mile radius of one another in DeKalb County. All of the robberies occurred in or near apartment complexes.

The first victim was walking into the Colony Apartments when a gold Cavalier with a dent on the side and a cracked taillight stopped near him. Two men jumped out while a woman remained in the car. One of the male robbers pointed a .357 caliber revolver at the victim and told him to “give it up.” As the victim was emptying his pockets, the robber struck the victim in the jaw with the gun, causing him to stumble to the ground and drop his cell phone, his driver’s license, and all of his cash. The second male robber picked up the items that had been dropped. The victim got up from the ground, pushed one of the male robbers, and took off running. He ran to a friend’s house, and his friend’s mother called the police when she saw the victim at the door with blood on him.

That same night, a plumber and his assistant (the second and third victims) were trying to repair a broken water main at the Windchase Apartments. The plumber saw two men slowly approach the back of his parked utility truck. The two men then walked around the truck, and one of them pointed a handgun at the back of the plumber’s head, said that it was a robbery, and made the plumber and his assistant turn around. The handgun held by the robber appeared to be a .357 caliber revolver. While the first robber held the plumber at gunpoint, the second robber approached the plumber’s assistant and began striking him. When the plumber attempted to stop the second robber from hitting his assistant, the first robber struck the plumber twice in the head with the revolver, causing him to bleed heavily and ultimately requiring multiple stitches on the back right and left sides of his head. At the first robber’s command, the plumber got down on the ground, after which the second robber began to kick him in the side. The robbers took the plumber’s wallet and tool bag [846]*846and his assistant’s Blackberry cell phone. The robbers eventually walked away, and the plumber’s assistant went to a nearby apartment and had the tenant call the police while the plumber lay on the ground.

A few minutes after the robbery of the plumber and his assistant, a fourth victim was walking home to her apartment which was near the Windchase Apartments when she saw a gold Cavalier exit from that complex. She heard a car door close and then was approached by a man who grabbed her, pushed her against a fence, pointed a .357 caliber revolver in her face, and told her to hand over her purse and other belongings. The Cavalier backed up to where she and the robber holding her at gunpoint were located, and the fourth victim saw that there was a woman in the driver’s seat and a man in the front passenger seat. After the robber who was holding her at gunpoint took her purse and camera, he got into the rear seat of the Cavalier, which then drove off. The fourth victim was able to see the license tag number as the Cavalier drove away, and she called 911 on her cell phone, reported what had happened, and provided a tag number to the dispatcher.

The three robberies occurred at approximately 9:30, 9:40, and 9:50 p.m. Shortly after 10:00 p.m., a be-on-the-lookout (“BOLO”) was issued for the gold Cavalier with the specified license tag number and for the suspects seen in the car, identified as two men and a woman. An officer with the City of Pine Lake Police Department was on patrol near where the robberies had occurred. After hearing the BOLO, the officer began looking for the Cavalier and located it within minutes in an apartment complex that was about a quarter of a mile away from the Windchase Apartments. The officer observed the Cavalier backing into a parking space there, and he saw that it was occupied by two men and a woman. The woman was driving, and one man was in the front passenger seat while the other man was in the back seat. The license tag number on the gold Cavalier closely matched the number given by the fourth victim,2 and the car had a dent on the side and a cracked taillight as described by the first victim.

The officer stopped his patrol car, got out, and approached the Cavalier. The woman stayed in the car, but the two men got out and began walking away. The officer ordered the men to stop, but they fled into a nearby apartment unit, where they turned off the lights, shut the blinds, and locked themselves inside. At that point, the officer radioed for backup and arrested the woman who had stayed in the car.

[847]*847A search warrant was obtained for the apartment. Upon executing the search warrant, officers located the two males inside the apartment and arrested them. No one else was inside the apartment. During the search, officers recovered from inside the apartment the driver’s license of the first victim, which had been cut into pieces; the tool bag of the second victim (the plumber), which had blood on it; and the camera of the fourth victim. They also recovered a .357 caliber revolver hidden in the toilet tank in the master bathroom, and bloody bullets under a mattress. During the subsequent execution of a search warrant for the gold Cavalier, officers recovered a Blackberry cell phone matching the description of the one stolen from the third victim (the plumber’s assistant).

The woman driver of the Cavalier was identified as Whitney McGlasker, and the two men who had barricaded themselves inside the apartment were identified as Derrick Greene and Cedric Wickerson. The Cavalier was registered in the name of Wickerson’s mother. The registered tenant of the apartment where Greene and Wickerson had barricaded themselves was Greene’s girlfriend.

McGlasker, Greene, and Wickerson were indicted for multiple offenses arising out of the robberies. McGlasker was tried and convicted of three counts of armed robbery and four counts of aggravated assault. See McGlasker v. State, 321 Ga. App. 614 (741 SE2d 303) (2013). Greene pled guilty to multiple offenses relating to the robberies. Wickerson was tried separately on multiple counts of armed robbery and aggravated assault.3

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743 S.E.2d 509, 321 Ga. App. 844, 2013 Fulton County D. Rep. 1636, 2013 WL 2233945, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 421, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wickerson-v-state-gactapp-2013.