Guzman-Perez v. State

FINAL COPY

            S20A1102. GUZMAN-PEREZ v. THE STATE.


      MELTON, Chief Justice.

      Following a jury trial, Appellant, Fernando Guzman-Perez,

was convicted of malice murder and concealing the death of another

in connection with the death of his wife, Yamilet Rodriguez.1 On

appeal, Appellant argues that the evidence was insufficient to

support    his   murder      conviction    and    that    he    was    denied

constitutionally effective assistance of counsel. We affirm.

      1.    Appellant contends that the evidence presented at trial

was insufficient to sustain his murder conviction because the



      1 On January 6, 2016, a Gwinnett County grand jury indicted Appellant

for malice murder and concealing the death of another. At a jury trial from
August 28-30, 2017, the jury returned guilty verdicts on both charges.
Appellant was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for
malice murder and ten years concurrent for concealing the death of another.
Appellant filed a motion for new trial on September 6, 2017, which he amended
through new counsel on March 15, 2019. After a hearing, the trial court denied
the motion as amended on January 8, 2020. Appellant timely filed a notice of
appeal to this Court. The appeal was docketed to the August 2020 term of this
Court and was submitted for a decision on the briefs.
evidence of his guilt was entirely circumstantial and did not rule out

a reasonable hypothesis consistent with his innocence. We disagree.

     It is well settled that, when evaluating the sufficiency of

evidence as a matter of constitutional due process, “the relevant

question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have

found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable

doubt.” (Citation and emphasis omitted.) Jackson v. Virginia, 

 (III) (B) (

, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). “This Court

does not reweigh evidence or resolve conflicts in testimony; instead,

evidence is reviewed in a light most favorable to the verdict, with

deference to the [factfinder’s] assessment of the weight and

credibility of the evidence.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.)

Hayes v. State, 

 (

) (2013).

     Viewed in this light, the evidence presented at trial showed

that, prior to Rodriguez’s death, Appellant had been complaining to

his friends and co-workers that he was unsatisfied with the lack of

intimacy in his marriage. After midnight on Wednesday, October 7,

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2015, Rodriguez, along with her neighbor and co-worker, Victor

Ruiz, returned home to their two-story apartment building after

finishing their workday.   Appellant and Rodriguez lived in an

apartment on the top floor of the building, and Ruiz lived in an

apartment on the first floor next to the stairwell. Rodriguez and

Ruiz returned to their respective apartments, and Ruiz stayed up

for a couple of hours to watch television. He heard no noise in the

stairwell that he shared with Appellant and Rodriguez.

     The next day, Appellant walked down to Ruiz’s apartment and

asked him if he had seen Rodriguez. Appellant remarked that she

might have left with another man. Ruiz told Appellant he had not

seen Rodriguez since they had returned home from work. Later that

same day, Appellant called Otoniel Garduno, the pastor of his

church, and asked for contact information for a new pediatrician.

During this conversation, Appellant made no mention of his wife’s

disappearance. On Sunday, October 11, Appellant took his and

Rodriguez’s children to church without their mother. When Pastor

Garduno inquired into her whereabouts, Appellant said that she had

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left him and their children.

     On the morning of October 12, the couple’s children,

Rodriguez’s sisters, and Pastor Garduno and his wife all gathered at

Appellant’s home and urged him to inform the police that Rodriguez

was missing. Appellant initially refused, claiming that he did not

want to get Rodriguez in trouble as she had prior charges of

abandonment of their children. Instead, Appellant led the group on

a search for Rodriguez, stopping at nearby jails, a motel near the

family home, and her place of work, but they failed to locate her or

obtain any new information as to her whereabouts. After this, the

group finally convinced Appellant to report that his wife was

missing.

     When the police responded to Appellant’s missing person call

on the afternoon of October 12, Appellant informed officers that

Rodriguez had left a few days prior, after the couple had an

argument.

     During the investigation into the missing person report,

Appellant consented to a search of the couple’s apartment. Officers

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noted nothing out of the ordinary during their search. They asked

Appellant additional questions, and he told them, once again, that

Rodriguez left after an argument, this time mentioning that she had

taken a debit card and $1,700 with her.

     Then, on Thursday, October 15, Appellant’s boss at Express Oil

Change was removing a stack of tires in a wooded area next to the

dumpsters behind the store, when he noticed a pungent smell

coming from an orange garbage bag behind the tires. He noted that

the bag did not come from the shop because they only used black

trash bags. He then called the police. Responding officers located

Rodriguez’s decomposing body inside the orange bag.

     Dr. Carol Terry, the State’s medical examiner, performed the

autopsy of Rodriguez and testified at trial that her body was

wrapped in four separate garbage bags. The first layer contained

two garbage bags, one pulled up from the feet and one pulled down

from the head, with tape holding Rodriguez’s body in the fetal

position and wrapped tightly around her neck. Rodriguez’s body was

then placed into two additional garbage bags.

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     Dr. Terry found a single blunt force injury to the back of

Rodriguez’s neck, which, Dr. Terry opined, was not sufficient to have

caused Rodriguez’s death. Rodriguez’s body had signs of significant

decomposition including bloating, discoloration, and skin slippage.

And, due to the severe decomposition of the body, Dr. Terry could

not determine with any certainty the cause of death. However, given

the state in which Rodriguez’s body was found, Dr. Terry opined that

the manner of death was homicide.

     Officers obtained a search warrant for the couple’s shared

residence, and, during this second search, they located orange trash

bags. A forensic analyst matched the bags used to conceal

Rodriguez’s body to the roll of garbage bags found in Appellant’s

home. Officers also found bloodstains in the trunk of Appellant’s

car, which were later matched to Rodriguez.

     Appellant was taken into custody and brought to the

Lawrenceville Police Department for questioning. There, he told

officers that Rodriguez arrived home from work on October 7 and

that the couple showered together. Appellant wanted to have sex,

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but Rodriguez refused. Appellant tried to make advances again

when the couple was in bed, and Rodriguez became annoyed.

Appellant told officers that Rodriguez got out of bed, changed

clothes, and left after the couple had an argument. Appellant stated

that he did not follow Rodriguez at that time.

     When officers confronted Appellant with the orange trash bags

and the victim’s body, his head dropped, and he began to cry.

Appellant then told police that he did chase after Rodriguez when

she left the apartment, and that when he tried to stop her at the top

of the staircase, she moved to avoid his grasp and fell down the

stairwell. Appellant said that he ran down the stairs and checked

Rodriguez for a pulse but was unable to find one. Appellant became

nervous that law enforcement would not believe what happened, so

he wrapped the victim’s body in garbage bags, drove to the Express

Oil Change, and left Rodriguez there.

     Regarding    Appellant’s   claim   that     the   evidence   was

constitutionally insufficient to support his murder conviction, based

on the evidence presented at trial, the jury was authorized to find

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Appellant guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson,

.2

      Appellant further alleges that, because the State’s case was

based solely on circumstantial evidence, and because he presented a

“reasonable” hypothesis of his innocence as it pertained to the

murder charge that the State did not discredit, the evidence was

insufficient to support his murder conviction pursuant to OCGA §

24-14-6. “In cases like this one where convictions are based on

circumstantial evidence, the evidence must be ‘consistent with the

hypothesis of guilt’ and ‘exclude every other reasonable hypothesis

save that of the guilt of the accused.’” Collett v. State, 

 (1) (

) (2019) (quoting OCGA § 24-14-6). Whether



      2 Appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence concerning

his conviction for concealing the death of another. Consistent with our
customary practice in murder cases, we have reviewed the evidence sua sponte,
and we conclude that the evidence as summarized above was sufficient to
enable a rational trier of fact to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that
Appellant was guilty of concealing the death of another. See 

But see Davenport v. State, 

 (4) (

) (2020)
(explaining that the Court will end its practice of considering sufficiency sua
sponte in non-death penalty cases with cases docketed to the term of court that
begins in December 2020).

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the evidence excludes every other reasonable hypothesis is a

question for the factfinder.    See 

     “Not every hypothesis is

reasonable, and the evidence does not have to exclude every

conceivable inference or hypothesis; it need rule out only those that

are reasonable.” (Citation omitted.) Akhimie v. State, 

 (1) (

) (2015).        Where a rational fact finder is

authorized to find that the evidence ruled out all other reasonable

hypotheses, that finding will not be disturbed on appeal unless the

verdict is insupportable as a matter of law. 

     Appellant claims that the State’s evidence did not exclude the

reasonable hypothesis that Rodriguez simply fell down the stairs

and that Appellant did not cause her death. We disagree. The

evidence at trial showed that Appellant had been complaining that

he was unsatisfied with the intimate relationship he had with his

wife prior to her death, and that Rodriguez died after a fight with

her husband about this very topic. Appellant consistently lied to

family, friends, law enforcement, and a religious leader as to his

wife’s whereabouts. Furthermore, he denied involvement in her

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injuries and the concealing of her death until confronted with

physical evidence. Additionally, although Appellant told officers

that Rodriguez fell to her death from the top of their apartment

stairwell, the neighbor who lived next to the stairwell heard no

commotion or noises on the evening of Rodriguez’s death. Finally,

Appellant went to great lengths to hide his wife’s death, wrapping

her body in numerous garbage bags and hiding it behind a stack of

tires at his workplace.

     Based on the foregoing, the jury was not required to find that

Appellant’s hypothesis that Rodriguez simply fell down the stairs

was a reasonable one. See Collett, 

 (1); Black v.

State, 

 (1) (

) (2015). Instead, the jury could

reasonably infer that Appellant concealed his wife’s death and then

lied to the police, his family, and a religious leader about his wife’s

disappearance for more than a week because he had committed the

murder. See Jones v. State, 

 (1) (a) (

) (2013)

(criminal intent is a question for the factfinder, and can be inferred

from the defendant’s conduct before, during, and after the

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commission of the crimes). Accordingly, the evidence was sufficient

to support Appellant’s murder conviction.

     2.   Appellant claims that he received constitutionally

ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel failed to

consult with and present expert witness testimony to rebut the

State’s medical expert.    In order to establish that he received

ineffective assistance of counsel, Appellant

     must show counsel’s performance was deficient and that
     the deficient performance prejudiced him to the point that
     a reasonable probability exists that, but for counsel’s
     errors, the outcome of the trial would have been different.
     A strong presumption exists that counsel’s conduct falls
     within the broad range of professional conduct.

(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Pruitt v. State, 

(4) (

) (2007).     “Typically, the decision whether to

present an expert witness is a matter of trial strategy that, if

reasonable, will not sustain a claim of ineffective assistance.”

Matthews v. State, 

 (2) (

) (2017). And,

“[t]rial tactics and strategy . . . are almost never adequate grounds

for finding trial counsel ineffective unless they are so patently


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unreasonable that no competent attorney would have chosen them.”

(Citation and punctuation omitted.) McNair v. State, 

 (2) (b) (

) (2014).

     At the motion for new trial hearing, Appellant presented the

testimony of Dr. Kris Sperry, an expert in forensic pathology, and

also called his trial counsel as a witness. Dr. Sperry opined that,

based upon his review of the evidence, the victim’s death could have

been caused by an accidental fall down the stairs. However, he could

not state with any certainty the cause of the victim’s death, and,

because of this, he would have listed the manner of death as

“undetermined” rather than “homicide.”

     Trial counsel testified that he received and reviewed the State’s

discovery material, including the report from Dr. Terry. Counsel

considered whether to hire an expert in this case, but chose not to

because he felt he could get the medical evidence he needed through

a thorough cross-examination of the State’s expert. Regarding Dr.

Sperry’s motion for new trial testimony, trial counsel stated that, as

a matter of strategy, he would not have pursued the theory that the

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victim’s death was an accident, explaining:

     I didn’t — I still don’t see it now; I mean, quite frankly, I
     just don’t. I mean, the defense was — it always is “we
     didn’t do anything to her.” And I found if you give the jury,
     “Well if you don’t believe A, maybe it was B,” then that
     dilutes [theory A] as a defense . . . and so from that
     standpoint, I mean, the defense was always, “I didn’t
     touch her. I didn’t lay a hand on her. I certainly didn’t kill
     her.” And it maintained that way from start to finish.

Additionally, counsel felt that it would have been extremely difficult

to convince a jury that the victim’s death was an accident based on

the facts of the case, which included Appellant’s numerous

conflicting statements to witnesses and law enforcement and his

attempt to conceal the body.

     Based on the foregoing, the record shows that trial counsel’s

decision not to hire an expert in forensic pathology was a matter of

reasonable trial strategy. As we have previously explained,

     [i]nformed strategic decisions do not amount to
     inadequacy under Strickland. The fact that appellant and
     his present counsel now disagree with the difficult
     decisions regarding trial tactics and strategy made by
     trial counsel does not require a finding that appellant
     received representation amounting to ineffective
     assistance.


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(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Starks v. State, 

 (6) (b) (

) (2008).      And, because Appellant

cannot show that his trial counsel acted deficiently, his claim of

ineffective assistance of counsel fails. See Wright v. State, 

 (2) (

) (2012) (“If an appellant fails to meet his

or her burden of proving either prong of the Strickland test, the

reviewing court does not have to examine the other prong.”

(Citations omitted.)).

     Judgment affirmed. Nahmias, P. J., and Boggs, Peterson,
Bethel, Ellington, and McMillian, JJ., concur. Warren, J., not
participating.



                    DECIDED DECEMBER 21, 2020.
     Murder. Gwinnett Superior Court. Before Judge Conner.
     Lynn M. Kleinrock, for appellant.
     Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Samuel R. d’Entremont,
Assistant District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General,
Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K.
Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Mark S. Lindemann,
Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.




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