Georgia case law updates and legal news
Edited By George Washington

The Atlanta Gleaner.

February 12, 2023.

Williams v. State, No. S22A0836, 2023 WL 1785721 (Ga. Feb. 7, 2023)
#robbery #murder #cell phone search warrant #drug deal gone wrong
Antonio Lafonta Williams was convicted of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony in connection with the shooting death of Martrell Gay. 

On appeal, Williams argues that: 

(1) the trial court plainly erred by admitting cell-site location information (“CSLI”) secured through an insufficiently particularized “general” warrant; 

and (2) the trial court plainly erred by charging the jury that the testimony of a single witness was sufficient under OCGA § 24-14-8 without charging the jury on the need for corroboration of an accomplice's testimony.

The evidence at trial showed the following — on Saturday February 21, 2015 the defendant Antonio Lafonta Williams drove from his residence in Kings Mountain, North Carolina, to Atlanta with a friend to celebrate the birthday of Williams's cousin, Tobias Sherrer. 

There Sherrer's friend, Ken Davis, helped Williams set up a meeting with Martrell Gay to buy a pound of marijuana for $900. After Williams gave Gay $900 for the marijuana, Gay told Williams that he did not have the marijuana on him and that he would have to go get it. Williams attempted to follow Gay's car, but Gay sped away and never returned. The next morning, Williams and his friend returned to North Carolina.

Tobias Sherrer and his mother, Jacqueline Sherrer, testified that on March 7, 2015, Williams unexpectedly arrived at Sherrer's house with Williams's cousin, Jeffrey Currant. Sherrer met Williams and Currant outside, got in Williams's car, and saw a “big gun” in the backseat.

The gun was a black long gun that appeared to be a rifle or shotgun. Sherrer asked Williams to put the gun away before they drove around, and Williams wrapped it in a shirt and put it in the trunk.

Williams was still upset about the robbery and thought Sherrer and Davis had set him up. Sherrer denied and Williams told Sherrer that he wanted to “get at” Gay. Williams then asked where Davis was and they went to Davis's house. While at Davis's house, Williams mentioned that he needed to find Gay and that he needed his money. The four men left Davis's home and dropped Sherrer off at his sister's house.

Later that day, Gay was shot in the head at the West End Food Mart. Video surveillance recordings that were played for the jury show that three men entered the Food Mart shortly after Gay entered. Gay ran to a corner on the left side of the store, appearing to try and hide, but was shot by a man with multi-colored dreadlocks. Gay sustained one gunshot wound to the head. The video surveillance recording showed that Gay ran to the back of the store after being shot and had a conversation with the shooter while the shooter continued to periodically point the gun at Gay. Though the exact type of gun used in the shooting is unknown, the shooter can be seen on the video surveillance recording firing a handgun. The audio from the recording showed that someone said, “give me my shit bro” and “I ain't playing.” The shooter left shortly before Gay walked out and collapsed on the sidewalk outside the store. Gay died later that day as a result of his injury.

Williams had red, white, and blue colored dreadlocks at the time of the shooting and was eventually arrested for the crimes. At trial, Sherrer testified that he previously identified Williams as the shooter from a clip of the video surveillance recording of the shooting played on the news4 and then again when he was shown the same video while he was later questioned at the precinct. Williams's phone records, which were introduced at trial, placed him in the area of the shooting at the same time as the crimes. 

Additionally, Williams's time cards at work showed that he left work on Saturday, March 7, 2015, at 12:27 a.m., and he did not return to work that weekend.

Sherrer testified that at some point after the shooting, he attempted to call Williams several times to see if Williams could give him a ride. When Williams picked up the phone, he told Sherrer that he could not give him a ride and that he was getting ready to leave the Atlanta area to go home. Williams also mentioned that he needed to get rid of his phone before hanging up.

The video surveillance shows that Davis was at the Food Mart shortly before the shooting. Davis is seen leaving the Food Mart after Gay enters and just before Williams does. Davis himself admitted that he is shown in the video. 

Davis testified at trial that the following occurred. After Williams and Currant dropped Sherrer off before the shooting, they also dropped Davis off so he could meet up with his brother. Later that day, while Davis was walking to the West End area, Williams and Currant drove by Davis and stopped to offer him a ride. Davis agreed, and the three then went to see a talent show at the West End mall. But Davis left the talent show because he got a call from his brother. While he was out, he went into the Food Mart to get cigarettes but left because the line was too long. On his way out, he ran into a friend by the door. As he was speaking to the friend at the door, he heard gunshots and ran to Williams's car. By the time he got to the car, Williams was already there. Davis, Williams, and Currant then went to Davis's house to play video games before Williams returned to North Carolina.

To rebut the defense's theory that there was another potential shooter linked to Gay's drug dealings, the State elicited the following testimony. Brittany Butler, Gay's girlfriend at the time of the shooting, testified that Gay was a “big time drug dealer.” Both Butler and Timothy Jordan, one of Gay's friends, testified that Gay was having a “beef” with Steven Horn around the time of the shooting. The two apparently would steal from each other, and Horn previously sent threatening messages to Butler over Instagram. But both Butler and Jordan testified that Gay and Horn had reconciled before the shooting. Additionally, Detective Young testified that he immediately determined that Horn could not have been the shooter because at the time of the shooting, he had a “box” hair style and tattoos on his face, whereas the shooter on the video did not.

(1) Williams contends the trial court plainly erred by admitting CSLI related to Williams's cell phone because the search warrant authorizing the seizure of Williams's phone records lacked sufficient particularity as to the location to be searched. 

The warrant was obtained by law enforcement officials for Verizon Wireless's data related to Williams's cell phone number from February 27, 2015 through March 9, 2015. Law enforcement officials did not conduct a physical search of any property under the authority of the warrant. Instead, they accessed Verizon's online portal designed to facilitate execution of warrants of this sort and provided Verizon with the parameters of the search authorized by the warrant via the portal. Verizon, in turn, provided the responsive data pursuant to the request in an email, which included the CSLI for Williams's cell phone.

Williams argues that because the warrant only specified “Verizon Wireless, 07921, Bedminster, NJ” as the location to be searched, it authorized a search of any Verizon building within that zip code in Bedminster, New Jersey, and therefore allowed law enforcement “significant discretion.” 

Williams did not object to the admission of the evidence obtained through the warrant at trial. Here, he fails to establish that the admission of the evidence constituted plain error because the trial court did not clearly or obviously err by admitting the CSLI evidence.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and it requires that a search warrant “particularly describe the places to be searched.” U. S. Const. amend. IV. 

Williams concedes that because his trial counsel did not move to suppress the CSLI procured by the search warrant based on particularity, this claim must be reviewed on appeal under the plain-error standard. See OCGA § 24-1-103 (d). To that end, Williams does not offer any controlling authority, and the Court finds none, requiring that a warrant particularly describe the physical location of data in a search warrant seeking electronic records housed in a cell service provider's database that is accessed through an online portal. This claim of plain error therefore fails.

(2) Williams also contends that the trial court plainly erred when it instructed the jury under OCGA § 24-14-8 that a single witness's testimony is sufficient to establish a fact without also instructing that an accomplice's testimony must be corroborated. He argues that this instruction was required because Davis was Williams's accomplice and that reversal is warranted. But there was no plain error because Williams failed to show that any error in failing to give the instruction affected his substantial rights.

“The testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient to establish a fact” under Georgia law. OCGA § 24-14-8. But, in “felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice, the testimony of a single witness shall not be sufficient. Nevertheless, corroborating circumstances may dispense with the necessity for the testimony of a second witness.” Id. Therefore, “a felony conviction cannot be sustained solely by the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.” 

Even assuming that the evidence of Davis's complicity was sufficient to require the giving of an accomplice-corroboration instruction, Williams has failed to establish that the trial court's failure to give the instruction affected his substantial rights.  In his testimony, Davis described the prior incident where Gay stole $900 from Williams and placed Williams at the West End Mall area at the time of Gay's murder. But all of the material facts from his testimony were independently corroborated by other witnesses and evidence, such that Davis's testimony was cumulative of other evidence properly admitted at trial. AFFIRMED.

Delaney v. State, No. A22A1350, 2023 WL 1810724 (Ga. Ct. App. Feb. 8, 2023)
#insanity plea #conditional release #involuntary treatment #escape room
In 2008, the trial court accepted Yvonne Delaney's plea of not guilty by reason of insanity after she stabbed someone to death in 2005. Delaney now appeals from the trial court's “Order Continuing Unsupervised Conditional Release.” She contends that the trial court erred by:

(1) failing to discharge her from commitment as she met all the requirements of her conditional release plan; 

(2) ruling that she had failed to overcome the rebuttable presumption that she continues to require involuntary treatment; 

and (3) failing to consider all evidence presented at the hearing and contained in the trial record.

Court of appeals vacates the trial court's order and remands to the trial court with direction.

Following the entry of her not guilty by reason of insanity plea, Delaney was confined in a state mental hospital until she was conditionally released on February 19, 2009, at the request of her treatment team. The 2009 conditional release order stated that Delaney “does not meet the criteria for involuntary inpatient commitment as set forth in OCGA § 37-3-1” and ordered that she be placed in a “supervised living arrangement” for her to “demonstrate that she can enter and stay with a formal outpatient treatment program and live with supervision as mandated by her care plan.” 

Her conditional release was extended numerous times between 2009 and 2018. The orders typically found that she currently met the criteria for outpatient involuntary treatment and specified a one-year time period for continued conditional release. None of these orders specifically addressed whether she had successfully completed the requirements of the prior conditional release orders.

In a 2018 hearing, a forensic psychologist with the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Disabilities and the Director of Department's Community Forensic Outpatient Services, testified that she oversees everyone conditionally released from hospitals in the western part of Georgia, including Delaney. She testified that Delaney's diagnosis was schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, that her medications have been successful at eradicating the symptoms of her illness, and that she has not had any symptoms since she was conditionally released into the community. The psychologist recommended that Delaney be fully released because “she has done absolutely beautifully in the community since 2009.” 

At the time of the hearing, Delaney had been married for six years and was living with her husband in an apartment. In the psychologist's opinion, Delaney “no longer fit inpatient or outpatient civil commitment criteria.” She acknowledged that Delaney's symptoms would come back if she did not take her medication and that Delaney stabbed someone to death in 2005 when she stopped taking her medication.

Six weeks later, the trial court issued an “Order for Unsupervised Conditional Release” denying Delaney's request for a full release, finding that she “will require outpatient treatment in order to avoid predictable decompensation and the need to return to inpatient treatment” if she were to stop taking her medications. It ordered her to comply with her latest treatment plan with the modification that she no longer had to be “physically monitored” and could confirm that she was taking her medications by telephone. The order stated no time period for her continued conditional release.

Three years later, Delaney filed another petition for release, asserting that she no longer met the criteria for civil commitment. Although she requested a hearing in which she could submit evidence in support of her petition, no transcript appeared in the record before the Court. The record contained no order scheduling a hearing, the trial court's subsequent order ruling on the petition does not indicate that a hearing was held, and the Court's communication with the trial court has revealed that no such hearing was held. (Delaney's brief nonetheless states that a hearing was held on June 11, 2021, and cites to a transcript from a hearing that appears to be the one held in 2018. On June 10, 2021, the trial court signed an order denying Delaney's petition, and this order was entered on June 11, 2021 at 8:35 a.m., making it unlikely that a hearing was held on June 11, 2021.)

In its seven-page order, the trial court continued Delaney's “unsupervised conditional release” based on its conclusion that she “will require outpatient treatment in order to avoid predictable decompensation and the need to return to inpatient treatment.” It ordered her to “continue to abide by the latest treatment plan, including all therapy sessions....” A failure to abide by its order would result in the involuntary inpatient commitment of Delaney for a 30-day evaluation. Although it continued her conditional release, the trial court did not impose a time period for her conditional release. It also failed to address whether Delaney had successfully completed her conditional release program.

1. Delaney contends that the trial court erred by denying her petition because she successfully completed all of the requirements of her conditional release plan. She also points out that the trial court did not rule on whether she successfully completed the requirements of her conditional release plan. Delaney relies upon OCGA § 17-7-131 (e) (5) (B), which provides, in part: “If the defendant successfully completes all requirements during this period of conditional release, the court shall discharge the individual from commitment at the end of that period.” 

The State, on the other hand, asserts that the trial court was authorized to continue her conditional release if she continued to meet the criteria for outpatient involuntary treatment. 

Neither party correctly interprets the conditional release statute or invokes Sikes v. State, 268 Ga. 19 (1997), the Supreme Court of Georgia's seminal decision regarding conditional release.

In Sikes, the Supreme Court of Georgia held that under OCGA § 17-7-131 (e) (5), when insanity acquittee who has been ordered to undergo voluntary inpatient treatment successfully completes court-ordered conditional release program, trial court is required by statute to discharge acquittee from existing order for involuntary inpatient treatment, but may require acquittee to participate in outpatient treatment so long as acquittee meets requirements for outpatient treatment. O.C.G.A. § 17–7–131(e)(5)(B).

In Sikes, “the trial court's order did not reveal whether the trial court found that the defendant had successfully completed his conditional release plan.” 268 Ga. at 21 (1). The Supreme Court of Georgia therefore remanded the case back to the trial court to make that finding with the following guidance:

If the trial court on remand determines that the defendant successfully completed his conditional release, the trial court must discharge the defendant from the order requiring his hospitalization. The trial court may, however, order the defendant to participate in involuntary outpatient treatment if the court determines that the defendant meets the requirements for such treatment. If the court determines that the defendant did not successfully complete his conditional release program, the court may take either of the actions authorized by § 17-7-131 (e) (5) (C) (i) or (ii).

“As we are likewise confronted with an order that fails to specify whether a defendant successfully completed the requirements of conditional release, we vacate the trial court's order and remand this case to the trial court to make the same determinations outlined in Sikes.” Court of Appeals further instructs the trial court to determine on the record whether a hearing has already been held in this case, and if not, appropriately rule on the request for a hearing in Delaney's petition. 

Delaney's remaining enumerations of error were moot.