Coates v. State

FINAL COPY

                 S20A1128. COATES v. THE STATE.


      MCMILLIAN, Justice.

      Appellant Horace E. Coates appeals his convictions for malice

murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of

Adrian Brooks and aggravated assault of Senchael Clements.1 In his

sole enumeration of error on appeal, Coates contends that the



      1 The crimes occurred on July 3, 2014. On January 9, 2015, a Newton

County grand jury returned an eight-count indictment against Coates and
Abdul Williams for malice murder (Count 1); two counts of felony murder
predicated on armed robbery and on aggravated assault (Counts 2 and 3);
armed robbery (Count 4); aggravated assault of Brooks (Count 5); aggravated
assault of Clements (Count 6); and two counts of possession of a firearm during
the commission of a felony (Counts 7 and 8). Coates’s first jury trial in August
2016 ended in a mistrial. At his second jury trial held from March 13 to 15,
2017, Coates was convicted on all charges. Following a hearing on April 13,
2017, Coates was sentenced to serve life in prison for malice murder, another
life sentence for armed robbery to run consecutively, twenty years for
aggravated assault of Clements to run concurrently, and five years each for the
two possession counts to run consecutively to Count 1 but concurrently to each
other and Count 4. The felony murder counts were vacated by operation of law,
and the remaining aggravated assault count merged into Count 1. On May 12,
2017, Coates filed a motion for new trial, which he amended through new
counsel on May 16, 2018, and which was denied by the trial court on September
24, 2019. On December 16, 2019, the trial court granted Coates an out-of-time
appeal. Coates then timely filed a notice of appeal, and the case was docketed
to the August 2020 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the
briefs.
evidence was legally insufficient to support his convictions. We

affirm for the reasons below.

     Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the

evidence presented at trial showed that Brooks resided with his

girlfriend Ebony Etheridge and her minor son. On the evening of

July 3, 2014, Clements, who worked for Brooks doing odd jobs in

exchange for marijuana, walked to Brooks’s home. On his way over,

Clements saw Abdul Williams, Coates, and a third man later

identified as “Stunner,” driving in a white car around the

neighborhood. Clements knew Coates and Williams and had seen

them at Brooks’s residence on prior occasions. Clements testified

that Coates, Williams, and Stunner were at Brooks’s residence when

he arrived, left when Clements came in, and then quickly returned.

When they knocked upon their return, Brooks asked Clements to let

them in. Once inside, Coates asked for 45 grams of “loud,” which

Clements testified he understood as a higher quality, more

expensive form of marijuana. Brooks said he did not have that

amount but offered a smaller amount. After Coates smelled it, he

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accused Brooks of again giving him bad marijuana. Brooks

responded that he had never sold Coates bad marijuana and put

away the proffered drugs.

     According to Clements, Coates then said, “give it up” and “you

know what time it is.” Simultaneously, Coates and Williams drew

guns and pointed them at Brooks. Stunner also drew a gun and

ordered Clements to the ground while Williams stuffed his pockets

with drugs located on the table in front of Brooks. Brooks and Coates

began scuffling. Clements heard two gunshots and believed

Williams fired a third shot. Coates and Stunner grabbed more drugs

before fleeing the scene in a white four-door car with Williams.

     Williams testified that he and Coates were close friends.2 On

the day of the crimes, he called Coates for a ride home and was

picked up by Coates and two men he knew only as Stunner and “Big

Eyes” in a white four-door sedan rented by Stunner. Later, he,




     2 Coates and Williams were initially tried together, but their cases were

severed days before the second trial started. On the day before that trial,
Williams pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of
aggravated assault.
                                     3
Coates, and Stunner entered Brooks’s home while Big Eyes stayed

in the car. Williams testified that after Brooks did not give Coates

the requested amount of marijuana, Coates got up as if he was going

to leave but instead suddenly pulled a butcher knife from his pocket.

Brooks tried to run, but Coates grabbed him. Stunner shot his

weapon twice, causing Williams to run for the door. According to

Williams, Coates had no firearm, Brooks was unarmed, and

Clements was balled up on the ground, unarmed, after the first shot.

Williams noted that Coates wore a bulletproof vest that day, which

was not typical. Coates, Williams, Stunner, and Big Eyes then fled

in the white car. Williams denied having a gun or stealing drugs

from Brooks but testified that he saw Brooks’s black drawstring bag

of drugs in the car between Coates’s legs. While in the car, Coates

threatened Williams to keep him from talking about the crime and

told Williams that he would likely only serve two years in jail

because he was not actually involved in the crime.

     Etheridge testified that two nights before the shooting, she

overheard Brooks and Coates arguing over whether Brooks would

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continue to purchase midgrade marijuana exclusively from Coates.

On the day before the shooting, Coates and Williams came to her

home attempting to get Brooks to come outside, but Brooks refused.

Then, on the evening of the crimes, while she and her son were in

the bedroom, they heard yelling and two gunshots 15 seconds apart.

Shortly thereafter, Etheridge saw a white car speed out of her

driveway. When she discovered Brooks had been shot, Brooks told

her not to call 911 because he had an outstanding arrest warrant,

but Etheridge went to the home of her next-door neighbor to call 911.

The neighbor testified that he heard two gunshots and that when he

went to see about Brooks, he found Brooks lying on the floor with

blood pooled around him, face down and unresponsive but still

breathing. Etheridge and Clements hid the remainder of the drugs

that had been left in the open and a nonoperational shotgun before

the police arrived. Etheridge noticed that drugs from the table and

the black drawstring bag that Brooks normally used to store drugs

were missing.

     After the police arrived at the scene, Clements described a

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white four-door sedan and the appearances of the three males

involved in the shooting, two of whom he knew as “Big Dreads” and

“Little Dreads.” Clements also provided an address for where they

might be located. Shirley Delamar, a neighbor who was familiar

with Coates and Williams, described the two men to police,

explained that Coates drove a white car with tinted windows, and

provided Williams’s phone number. On November 20, 2014,

Clements identified Coates from a photo lineup as “Big Dreads,” and

Delamar identified Coates as the man she knew as “Big Dreads” or

“Unc.” Delamar testified at trial that she spoke with Williams on the

phone on the night of the murder when he called to ask if she had

heard anything although Williams did not explicitly bring up the

murder.

     Investigators found Brooks with $133 in his hand and $834 in

his pants pocket. They located a sandwich bag of marijuana in

Brooks’s driveway, a .45-caliber shell casing on the floor inside the

door of the residence, and another .45-caliber shell casing in the

living room. Investigators also identified a bullet hole in the front

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wall of the residence and a bullet that went through the wall and

into a wooden post on the front porch. The medical examiner

removed bullet fragments from Brooks and concluded that Brooks

died from a single gunshot wound to the right flank area of his torso.

A GBI firearms examiner testified that the recovered shell casings,

bullet in the wooden post, and bullet fragments were fired from the

same firearm, a Glock .45 automatic pistol. Under two pseudonyms,

Coates fled the country and later returned to Florida, where he was

arrested on November 6, 2015, and found with a .45-caliber

magazine and rounds.

     Coates contends that this evidence was insufficient to support

his convictions as a matter of constitutional due process. When

evaluating the sufficiency of evidence, this Court views the evidence

presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdict and asks

whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 

 (III) (B) (

, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). We conclude



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that the evidence was sufficient.3

     Coates contends that he cannot be guilty of malice murder

because neither witness to the shooting asserted that Coates was

the assailant who shot Brooks and because the State could not

provide any evidence that he intended to kill Brooks.

     A person commits the offense of murder when he
     unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express
     or implied, causes the death of another human being. The
     State, of course, must prove malice beyond a reasonable
     doubt to convict someone of malice murder, as malice
     incorporates the intent to kill. Express malice is that
     deliberate intention unlawfully to take the life of another
     human being which is manifested by external
     circumstances capable of proof, while malice is implied
     where no considerable provocation appears and where all
     the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and
     malignant heart. The malice necessary to establish
     malice murder may be formed in an instant, as long as it
     is present at the time of the killing. It is for a jury to
     determine from all the facts and circumstances whether a
     killing is intentional and malicious.


     3  Coates’s claims include a challenge to the evidence to support his
convictions for felony murder and aggravated assault of Brooks, but because
the aggravated assault count merged into the malice murder conviction, and
the felony murder count was vacated by operation of law, Coates was not
sentenced on either of those counts. Accordingly, we do not address these
claims. See Welch v. State, 

 (1) n.5 (

) (2019).
                                     8
Benton v. State, 

 (1) (a) (

) (2019)

(citations and punctuation omitted).

     Moreover, under OCGA § 16-2-20 (a), “[e]very person concerned

in the commission of a crime is a party thereto and may be charged

with and convicted of commission of the crime.” Conviction as a

party to a crime requires proof that the defendant “shared a common

criminal intent with the direct perpetrators” of the crimes. Fleming

v. State, 

 (3) (b) (

) (2019). A jury may

infer a common criminal intent from the defendant’s presence,

companionship, and conduct with other perpetrators before, during,

and after the crimes. See Powell v. State, 

 (1) (

) (2019).

     The evidence shows that Coates came back to Brooks’s home

after visiting him that day, pulled a gun on Brooks and told Brooks

to “give it up” after Brooks refused to sell him drugs, restrained

Brooks when Brooks attempted to run for the door, and left Brooks

to die after he was shot. It also shows that Coates fled the country

immediately after the crimes occurred. See Rowland v. State, 306

                          

, 65 (3) n.4 (

) (2019) (Evidence of “flight, . . .

assumption of a false name, and related conduct is admissible as

evidence of consciousness of guilt, and thus of guilt itself.” (citation

and punctuation omitted)). Although the witnesses diverged in their

testimonies on whether it was Coates or one of his associates who

actually shot Brooks, the evidence was sufficient for the jury to

conclude that Coates committed malice murder either as the shooter

or as a party to the crime. See, e.g., Thomas v. State, 

 (1) (

) (2015) (jury was authorized to find beyond a

reasonable doubt that appellant was guilty of malice murder as a

party to the crime when appellant entered store with intent to

commit an armed robbery and exhorted shooter to hurry up).

     Similarly, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient for the

jury to find that Coates was guilty of aggravated assault against

Clements even though Clements claimed that one of the other men

with Coates held him at gunpoint while Coates and Brooks fought

and Williams stole drugs. OCGA § 16-5-21 (a) (2) does not require

that Coates point a deadly weapon directly at Clements to be guilty

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of aggravated assault against him, “but merely that the defendant

use the deadly weapon in such manner as to place another in

reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury.”

Green v. State, 

 (1) (a) (

) (2018)

(citation and punctuation omitted). The evidence was sufficient to

show that Clements was in reasonable apprehension of immediately

receiving a violent injury when Coates pulled a gun on Brooks, and

in any event, the jury was also authorized to find Coates guilty of

aggravated assault of Clements as a party to the crime. See

Herrington v. State, 

 (1) (b) (

) (2016)

(“[A] defendant need not personally possess a weapon or fire a shot

to be found guilty as a party to an aggravated assault, if the evidence

shows that he intentionally aided or abetted in the commission of

the crime.” (citation and punctuation omitted)).

     Coates also argues that the State failed to prove the armed

robbery charge under OCGA § 16-8-41 (a) because no witnesses

claimed that Coates, rather than Williams or Stunner, stole from

Brooks. However, Clements testified that Coates and Stunner stole

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drugs from the table before they fled, that Williams stole drugs from

the table while Coates and Stunner held Brooks and Clements at

gunpoint, and that Coates said “you know what time it is” and told

Brooks to “give it up.” This testimony is sufficient to sustain Coates’s

armed robbery conviction both directly and as a party to the crime.

See Boyd v. State, 

 (1) (a) (

) (2019)

(affirming conviction for armed robbery where defendant told

victims “ ‘y’all already know what time it is’” and to “ ‘give it up’”).

In addition, Etheridge testified that drugs were missing after

Coates, Williams, and Stunner left the scene of the murder, a bag of

marijuana was found on the ground where Coates ran between the

house and the car, and Williams testified that he saw Brooks’s black

drawstring bag of drugs in the car between Coates’s legs. This

additional circumstantial evidence supports Clements’s direct

testimony. See McKie v. State, 

 (

)

(2019) (Jurors are “entitled to draw reasonable inferences from the

evidence based on their own common-sense understanding of the

world.” (citation and punctuation omitted)). Thus, we conclude that

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the evidence was also sufficient to enable the jury to find Coates

guilty of armed robbery.

     Finally, Coates argues that even in the light most favorable to

the jury’s verdict, the evidence was insufficient to sustain his

convictions because there were only two witnesses who testified

about the crimes and their stories conflicted substantially. More

specifically, Coates argues that all of the crimes for which he was

convicted require the use of a firearm, but only one witness claimed

that Coates had a gun, the other witness said that Coates had a

butcher knife rather than a gun, and no gun was ever found.

Moreover, Coates argues that both witnesses’ credibility was

questionable. Williams testified for the State after pleading guilty

and receiving a lesser sentence, and Clements admitted giving police

a false name and false statements, being diagnosed with mental

illness characterized by hallucinations, being a convicted felon,

using drugs at the time of the shooting, and not being on his

medication at trial.

     However, our review must leave “to the jury the resolution of

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conflicts or consistencies in the evidence, credibility of witnesses,

and reasonable inferences to be made from the evidence.” Yarn v.

State, 

 (2) (

) (2019); see also Vega v.

State, 

 (1) (

) (2009) (“It was for the jury

to determine the credibility of the witnesses and to resolve any

conflicts or inconsistencies in the evidence.” (citation and

punctuation omitted)). Though only Clements testified that Coates

had a gun, “the testimony of a single witness is generally sufficient

to establish a fact.” Rich v. State, 

 (1) (a) (

) (2020) (citation and punctuation omitted). The jury was entitled

to believe that Coates wielded a gun rather than a knife based on

the evidence presented at trial; thus, the evidence was sufficient to

support Coates’s convictions for possession of a firearm during the

commission of a felony.

     Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Warren, J.,
not participating.




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                    Decided October 5, 2020.

    Murder. Newton Superior Court. Before Judge Johnson.
    Jennifer F. Arndt, Anthony S. Carter, for appellant.
    Layla H. Zon, District Attorney; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney
General, Patricia B. Attaway Burton, Deputy Attorney General,
Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Matthew B.
Crowder, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.




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