Brockman v. State

A Muscogee County jury convicted Ward Anthony Brockman of felony murder and criminal attempt to commit armed robbery and recommended a death sentence for the murder after finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was committed during the commission of another capital felony, to wit, armed robbery. See OCGA § 17-10-30 b 2. The trial court entered judgment accordingly. See OCGA § 17-10-31 a. Brockman’s motion for new trial was denied, and he appeals. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.1

General Grounds1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence at trial showed the following. On the night of June 26, 1990, Brockman’s accomplices, Quenton Lewis, Larry Moore, and Ronald Mathis, came to the apartment in Phenix City, Alabama, where Brockman was staying with his girlfriend. Brockman and his accomplices made plans to commit several armed robberies in order to obtain enough money to pay the bond to secure the release from jail of Lewis’s brother and a friend. A few days earlier, Brockman had stolen a black Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z T-Top from a car lot in Columbus and replaced the dealer’s tag with a Florida license tag, and he possessed a .38 revolver that belonged to his girlfriend and that he had previously used to commit an armed robbery.