303 Ga. 21
FINAL COPY
S17A1854. STORK v. THE STATE.
NAHMIAS, Justice.
Appellant Samuel Stork was convicted of malice murder in connection
with the shooting death of Rodney Pate. In this appeal, he claims that the
evidence was insufficient to support his conviction and that his trial counsel
provided ineffective assistance by failing to call a witness. Neither of these
claims has merit, so we affirm.1
1. (a) Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence
presented at trial showed the following. On February 1, 2014, Pate, Adarrius
Keaton, and Aquala Mobley were hanging out at Shiver’s Alley, a dead-end
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Pate was killed on February 8, 2014. On April 29, 2014, a Mitchell County grand jury
indicted Appellant for malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. His trial began on
January 12, 2015, and two days later the jury found him guilty of all charges. The trial court
sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison without parole for malice murder; the felony murder
verdict was vacated and the aggravated assault verdict was merged for sentencing purposes.
Appellant filed a timely motion for new trial, which he amended with new counsel on October 5,
2015. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the motion on August 22, 2016. On April
5, 2017, Appellant filed a motion for out-of-time appeal on the ground that his counsel had not been
notified of the August 2016 order. After the trial court granted the motion, Appellant filed a timely
notice of appeal, and the case was docketed in this Court for the August 2017 term and submitted
for decision on the briefs.
street leading to an apartment complex in Camilla, Georgia. Mobley was
Keaton’s cousin and Appellant’s girlfriend, and she was pregnant with
Appellant’s child. When she told Pate and Keaton that she had not been able to
get in touch with Appellant, they told her that it was probably because he was
with another girl. Pate then drove the group to Appellant’s home, where they
found Appellant and Shakendria Brown sitting in a car together. Appellant and
Brown drove away, but Pate, Keaton, and Mobley followed them. When Pate
caught up, he blocked Appellant’s car, and Keaton and Mobley got out and
yelled at Appellant.
The shooting occurred a week later, on the night of February 8. Pate,
Keaton, and Jason Williams were drinking at Shiver’s Alley. Mobley, who was
in her apartment nearby, called Appellant and asked him to come get her.
Appellant picked her up, and as he was driving away, Pate got in front of the
car, banged on it, and said, “You pus*y a*s nig*er. You and that bit*h better
stop playing with me.” Appellant and Pate argued, then Appellant drove
Mobley to his house, which was about 10 minutes away. After going inside for
a few seconds, Appellant drove back to Shiver’s Alley. On the way back,
Mobley could tell that Appellant was upset about his encounter with Pate. She
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told Appellant, “If you [are] thinking about [doing] something stupid, just think
about our baby.” When they returned to the alley, Appellant parked the car, and
he and Mobley got out. Mobley walked towards her apartment, but Appellant
walked up to Pate. Williams heard Appellant “talking trash” to Pate, and
another witness heard Appellant say, “Why you banging on my window like
that?” Appellant then pulled out a gun and shot Pate seven or eight times. At
some point during the gunfire, Pate fell to the ground, and Appellant continued
to shoot. Pate died from the gunshot wounds.
Appellant left the scene and drove home, then ran to some nearby railroad
tracks where he called a friend, Darius Hines, to pick him up. As Hines and
Appellant drove, they saw a police car, and Appellant asked Hines to let him
out, saying, “I think they’re looking for me.” Appellant turned himself in to the
officer in the car. He was still wearing the jacket that witnesses described him
wearing when he shot Pate; the jacket later tested positive for gunshot residue.
Appellant told the police that he had been in Albany that night with Hines and
that he did not know Pate. Eight 9mm shell casings were found at the crime
scene; they were fired from the same gun as a shell casing found in a dresser in
Appellant’s room.
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Contrary to his statement to the police, Appellant testified at trial that he
knew Pate even before the February 1 incident and that he remembered the first
encounter with Pate on the night of the shooting. Appellant claimed that Pate
came up to him cursing when he arrived back at Shiver’s Alley and that he felt
threatened and angry when Pate banged on his car but did not remember
shooting Pate or anything else from the time of the shooting until he reached the
railroad tracks. Appellant’s defense at trial was that he was out of his mind with
rage and shot Pate in the heat of the moment. The jury was given a voluntary
manslaughter instruction but found Appellant guilty as charged.
(b) Appellant argues that the evidence summarized above was not
sufficient to prove malice murder beyond a reasonable doubt, asserting that the
evidence supported only a conviction for the lesser included offense of
voluntary manslaughter. We disagree.
Although Appellant testified that he was angry when Pate banged on the
hood of his car and argued with him, he did not shoot Pate immediately in
response. Instead, he waited the 20 minutes or so that it took to drive with his
girlfriend to his house, go inside briefly, and drive back to Shiver’s Alley.
Moreover, the evidence shows that Appellant shot the victim seven or eight
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times, continuing to shoot even after the victim had fallen to the ground. And
the jury was entitled to disbelieve Appellant’s claim that he could not remember
the fatal encounter, particularly given his awareness that the police were looking
for him and the lies he told to the police. Viewed in the light most favorable to
the verdict, the evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find
Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of malice murder rather than
voluntary manslaughter. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (
99 SCt
2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). See also Sears v. State,
298 Ga. 400, 404 (
782
SE2d 259) (2016) (discussing the jury’s authority to reject a voluntary
manslaughter verdict in favor of a finding of malice murder); 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. Appellant also argues that his trial counsel provided ineffective
assistance by failing to call Shakendria Brown as a witness at trial. Brown
testified at the motion for new trial hearing that if she had been called, she
would have addressed the volatile relationship between Appellant and the
victim. Specifically, she would have testified that Appellant told her that Pate
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and Keaton were mad at him, and she would have given more details about the
incident on February 1.
To prevail on this claim, Appellant must show both that his counsel’s
performance was professionally deficient and that, but for the deficiency, there
is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been more
favorable to him. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 694 (
104
SCt 2052, 80 LE2d 674) (1984). Brown’s account of the February 1 incident
was nearly identical to the account offered by Appellant at trial, and
substantially similar to the trial testimony of Mobley and Keaton. There is no
reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different
had Brown been called to give her cumulative testimony. See Wesley v. State,
286 Ga. 355, 358 (
689 SE2d 280) (2010). Moreover, in light of the compelling
evidence regarding the fatal encounter, Appellant has failed to show how some
additional testimony about his previous disputes with the victim would in
reasonable probability have convinced the jury not to convict him of malice
murder. See Washington v. State,
285 Ga. 541, 544 (
678 SE2d 900) (2009).
Thus, Appellant’s ineffective assistance claim fails. See Gomez v. State,
300
Ga. 571, 573 (
797 SE2d 478) (2017) (“If a defendant fails to meet his burden
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on one prong of the two-prong [Strickland] test, then the other prong need not
be reviewed by the Court.” (citation omitted)).
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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Decided February 5, 2018.
Murder. Mitchell Superior Court. Before Judge Chason.
Harrell & Lewis, Jami L. Lewis, for appellant.
Joseph K. Mulholland, District Attorney, Moruf O. Oseni, Assistant
District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General, Patricia B. Attaway
Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney
General, Matthew M. Youn, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
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