In 2008, Cortez Tye was convicted of and sentenced for felony murder and related crimes stemming from a carjacking.1 Tye now appeals his convictions and sentences and the superior court’s 2014 denial of his motion for new trial, as amended, in which the remaining stated issue was Tye’s assertion that the judge who conducted his trial erred in declining to hold a hearing on the issue of Tye’s competency to stand trial pursuant to OCGA § 17-7-1302 even though Tye filed a special pre-trial plea of incompetency. Prior to the denial of the request for a new trial, the superior court conducted a post-conviction hearing on the issue of competency pursuant to Baker v. State, 250 Ga. 187 297 SE2d 9 1982, and determined that Tye was competent at the time of his trial. In this appeal, Tye makes no challenge regarding the merits of his convictions and sentences; the appeal focuses solely on the issue of competency to stand trial. For the reasons which follow, we affirm in part, and as discussed in Division 3, we vacate in part and remand the case for resentencing.
1. As noted, Tye has not enumerated as error that the evidence at his criminal trial was insufficient to sustain his convictions; nevertheless, this Court will review the evidence. Such evidence, construed in favor of the verdicts, included, inter alia, that on the date in question Tye and an accomplice approached the victim Rouse while he was in the parking lot of a gas station on Campbellton Road in Fulton County and physically attacked him; in the struggle to gain control of the keys to Rouse’s vehicle, Tye hit Rouse with an unknown object, knocking him to the ground and causing impact to the back of his head; Rouse was unable to move; Tye and his accomplice then stole Rouse’s vehicle and drove away; several days later, police spotted the stolen vehicle being driven by Tye; after seeing the police, Tye accelerated, turned onto a side street, and then into the parking lot of an apartment complex; once the vehicle stopped, all the occupants ran away; and a police officer chased after the driver, Tye, and eventually found him hiding in a closet of a vacant apartment. Tye admitted in a statement to police that he, along with an accomplice, came up on Rouse in an effort to get the keys to his vehicle; that at some point he fell on Rouse; that Rouse was on the ground and never stood up again; and that Rouse asked for help but that Tye and the accomplice drove away in Rouse’s vehicle. Rouse was hospitalized and later died of complications from the injuries he sustained in the attack.
