Carter v. State

A Clayton County jury found Ishmael Carter guilty of armed robbery, aggravated assault with intent to rob, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.1 Carter appeals from the denial of his motion for a new trial, raising the general grounds and contending that his trial counsel was ineffective. Finding no reversible error, we affirm the judgment of conviction.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 III B 99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979, the record reveals the following. Carter was friends with Desmond Nixon and Julius Thomas.2 On January 7, 2013, using Thomas’s cell phone, they placed a delivery order with the China Express Restaurant. Using her employer’s car, the victim drove the order to 293 Roxbury Drive, the address she had been given, but she found the house abandoned. She called Thomas’s cell phone, and Carter answered and said: I’m standing over here behind your car. Carter directed the victim to pull into the driveway of the abandoned house and then he got into the car with her, ostensibly to wait for his friends to bring money to pay for the food. When Thomas emerged from behind the abandoned house, Carter got out of the car to talk to him, leaving open the passenger door. The two men then walked around to the driver’s side of the car as Nixon slipped into the passenger seat next to the victim.