¶1NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.
¶2In the Supreme Court of Georgia
¶3 Decided: March 4, 2025
¶4 S25A0212. BERRY v. THE STATE.
¶5 COLVIN, Justice.
¶6 Appellant Christopher Berry appeals his convictions for malice
¶7murder and other crimes related to the shooting death of
¶8Cordeldrick Laquinn Brooks. 1 Appellant argues that the trial court
¶9 1 The crimes occurred on September 22, 2015. On December 15, 2015, a
¶10Richmond County grand jury returned an eight-count indictment against Appellant and Kameron Reese and a seven-count indictment against Samantha Griffin. Appellant was charged with malice murder (Count 1), felony murder (Count 2), kidnapping (Count 3), criminal attempt to commit armed robbery (Count 4), hijacking of a motor vehicle (Count 5), arson in the second degree (Count 6), possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime (Count 7), and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Count 8). Before trial, Reese pled guilty to some of the charges against him pursuant to a negotiated plea deal and agreed to testify for the State. Griffin was set to be tried separately from Appellant. A jury trial was held from April 24 through 28, 2018. Count 4 was nol prossed, and the jury found Appellant guilty on all the remaining counts. The trial court sentenced Appellant to life in prison for malice murder (Count 1) and for kidnapping (Count 3). The trial court also imposed ten-year concurrent prison sentences for hijacking a motor vehicle (Count 5) and arson in the second degree (Count 6) and five-year consecutive prison sentences for possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime (Count 7) and erred in denying his motion for directed verdict and that trial
¶11counsel was ineffective for failing to object to hearsay. As explained
¶12below, however, Appellant has not shown that the trial court erred
¶13in denying his motion for directed verdict, and his ineffective-
¶14assistance-of-counsel claim is waived. Accordingly, we affirm his
¶15convictions.
¶16 1. The trial evidence showed the following. Toni Murray, the
¶17mother of Brooks’s child, testified that Brooks left their home
¶18driving a white GMC Envoy on the night of September 21, 2015. Cell
¶19phone records and mapping data showed that Brooks’s cell phone
¶20was in “the North Augusta area” between 3:18 a.m. and 3:41 a.m. on
¶21September 22, 2015. Brooks’s phone number then interacted with
¶22co-defendant Kameron Reese’s phone number a total of six times
¶23possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Count 8). Appellant’s felonymurder count (Count 2) was vacated by operation of law. Appellant moved for a new trial on April 30, 2018, and amended the motion through new counsel on March 19, 2019. The trial court entered an order denying Appellant’s motion for new trial on July 30, 2019, and Appellant timely filed a notice of appeal directed to this Court on August 20, 2019. The appeal was docketed to this Court’s term beginning in December 2024 and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
¶24 2 between 4:00 a.m. and 4:08 a.m. By 4:08 a.m., Brooks’s cell phone
¶25had traveled to downtown Augusta where Brooks’s and Reese’s cell
¶26phones were “hitting off the same tower” and where Samantha
¶27Griffin lived.
¶28 At trial, Reese testified that he had pled guilty to some of the
¶29charges and that he was required to testify pursuant to his plea
¶30agreement. Reese was nevertheless a hostile witness for the State,
¶31and the State admitted and played for the jury portions of Reese’s
¶32police interview. In his police interview, Reese made the following
¶33statements. On the night of September 21, 2015, Brooks came to
¶34Griffin’s home, where Reese, Appellant, and Griffin were present.
¶35When Brooks entered Griffin’s home, Appellant “rushed” up to
¶36Brooks at the door with a gun, hit Brooks in the face with the gun,
¶37told him to move, and began “talking s**t.” Reese told Appellant to
¶38put his gun away, and, when Brooks asked Reese to tell Appellant
¶39not to hurt him, Reese reassured Brooks, saying, “ain’t nothing
¶40[go]nna happen.” Brooks then told Appellant that he knew where
¶41some “weed” was, and that he could take Appellant to a hotel to
¶42 3 purchase some. Brooks asked Reese to ride along with him and
¶43Appellant because Brooks was afraid to travel with Appellant alone.
¶44And at some point, Appellant made Brooks strip before making him
¶45put his clothes back on without his boxers, shoes, or socks.
¶46 Reese said that Reese, Brooks, and Appellant got into the
¶47Envoy, and that Brooks drove them some way before reaching the
¶48intersection of Lumpkin and Old McDuffie Roads. Cellular location
¶49data confirmed that Reese’s cellular device was present in the area
¶50of that intersection around 5:16 a.m. And Reese told police that, once
¶51Brooks got to the intersection, Brooks jerked the car to the right and
¶52hit a pole. Reese said he opened his door to get out of the vehicle and
¶53began to run away before hearing three gun shots. And he claimed
¶54throughout his police interview that “I didn’t take [Brooks] for a
¶55ride,” “I didn’t know [Appellant] was gonna do that,” “I never had a
¶56gun,” and “I didn’t go along with it.”
¶57 Reese gave different versions of how he fled the scene during
¶58the police interview. At one point, he claimed that a Toyota Camry
¶59picked him up as he was running away. But he later claimed that
¶60 4 Appellant drove the wrecked Envoy to pick him up; that during the
¶61car ride from the scene, Appellant said that he shot Brooks; and that
¶62Reese and Appellant set the Envoy on fire. Cell phone records
¶63showed that Reese’s and Appellant’s phone numbers interacted
¶64seven times between 5:16 a.m. and 5:23 a.m. that day.
¶65 A witness who was traveling through the area that morning
¶66testified that he found Brooks lying injured and without shoes at the
¶67intersection of Lumpkin and Old McDuffie Roads. When officers
¶68arrived at the scene, they found Brooks, a damaged telephone pole,
¶69and a vehicle bumper and grill lying nearby.
¶70 Brooks died shortly after the incident. A medical examiner
¶71testified that Brooks sustained two gunshot wounds — one to the
¶72back and one to the left hip — and that he died from “gunshot
¶73wounds of [the] torso.”
¶74 2. Appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying his
¶75motion for a directed verdict because there was no evidence
¶76corroborating co-defendant Reese’s statement inculpating
¶77Appellant. This claim fails.
¶78 5 “The standard of review for the denial of a motion for a directed
¶79verdict of acquittal is the same as for determining the sufficiency of
¶80the evidence to support a conviction.” Clements v. State, 317 Ga. 772,
¶81783 (1) (896 SE2d 549) (2023) (citation and punctuation omitted). To
¶82assess the sufficiency of the evidence,
¶83 we view all of the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted.
¶84Id. at 789 (4) (citation and punctuation omitted).
¶85 Georgia law provides that in “‘felony cases where the only
¶86witness is an accomplice, the testimony of a single witness shall not
¶87be sufficient’ to support a defendant’s convictions” absent
¶88corroboration. Caldwell v. State, 313 Ga. 640, 643 (1) (872 SE2d 712)
¶89(2022) (quoting OCGA § 24-14-8). However, “when the issue of
¶90whether a witness was an accomplice was submitted to the jury and
¶91there was evidence allowing the jury to find that the witness was
¶92not an accomplice, corroborating evidence is not required to sustain
¶93a guilty verdict on appeal.” Id. at 644 (1) (emphasis in original). And
¶94 6 we have held that a jury can find that a witness was not an
¶95accomplice even if, as here, the witness pled guilty to charges. See
¶96id. (noting that “even [the] joint indictment and guilty plea of [a]
¶97witness do[ ] not eliminate the jury question as to whether the
¶98witness was an accomplice”).
¶99 Here, the jury was properly instructed on the requirement for
¶100corroboration of an accomplice’s testimony and was authorized,
¶101based on the evidence presented at trial, to find that Reese was not
¶102an accomplice, making corroboration unnecessary as a matter of
¶103Georgia statutory law. See id. at 645 (1). Specifically, the jury heard
¶104evidence that Reese tried to get Appellant to put his gun away after
¶105pointing it at Brooks; that Reese only rode with Brooks and
¶106Appellant because Brooks asked him out of fear of Appellant; that
¶107only Appellant had a gun; that Reese did not know Appellant would
¶108shoot Brooks; and that, by the time the shots were fired, Reese was
¶109running away from the crash. Based on this evidence, the jury could
¶110have reasonably concluded that Reese was not an accomplice. And
¶111as a result, the trial court did not err in denying Appellant’s motion
¶112 7 for directed verdict. See id. (holding that the properly-instructed
¶113jury could have found that “[the State’s sole witness implicating the
¶114appellant in the crimes] was not an accomplice” because the jury was
¶115“instructed on the pertinent legal principles, the general verdict did
¶116not specify whether the jury found that [the witness] was an
¶117accomplice, and the jury could have inferred from [the witness’s]
¶118testimony that she had no prior knowledge of [the appellant’s] intent
¶119to shoot [the victim] or do anything other than buy marijuana”);
¶120Fisher v. State, 309 Ga. 814, 819 (2) (a) (848 SE2d 434) (2020)
¶121(holding that “[t]he jury could . . . determine that [the witness] was
¶122not an accomplice,” and thus that corroboration was not necessary,
¶123where the jury was “properly charged” and was “authorized to credit
¶124[the witness’s] testimony that he had no prior knowledge that [the
¶125appellant] would shoot or kill [the victim] and that [the witness]
¶126drove [the appellant] away from the shooting out of fear that [the
¶127appellant] might shoot him too”); State v. Grier, 309 Ga. 452, 454-
¶128456 (1) (2) (847 SE2d 313) (2020) (holding that the “evidence
¶129authorized the jury to find that [a witness] was not an accomplice at
¶130 8 all” where he testified that he wanted “nothing to do with” holding
¶131the victims at gunpoint, despite the fact that he testified to being
¶132present when the armed robbery was planned and carried out,
¶133fleeing with the coconspirators, and receiving money to “stay quiet”).
¶134 3. Appellant also claims that trial counsel was ineffective for
¶135failing to object on hearsay grounds to Investigator Ken Rogers’s
¶136testimony identifying Appellant’s phone number. This claim,
¶137however, is waived. In Appellant’s amended motion for new trial,
¶138which he filed through new counsel, Appellant asserted only that
¶139trial counsel was ineffective for “fail[ing] to counsel [Appellant] on
¶140the importance of the cell-phone records.”2 He did not assert that
¶141trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to Investigator
¶142Rogers’s testimony identifying Appellant’s phone number. Thus,
¶143this claim is not properly before us on appeal. See Jones v. State, 294
¶144Ga. 501, 503 (2) (755 SE2d 131) (2014) (concluding that the
¶145appellant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim was not properly
¶146before us because the appellant did not specifically raise the issue
¶147 2 Appellant later withdrew this claim, and he does not pursue it here.
¶148 9 asserted on appeal “in his motion . . . or at the hearing” in the trial
¶149court).
¶150 Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
¶151 10