Dennis v. State

The defendant's admission that he and his brother removed both victims from the first victim's vehicle, bound them with electrical ties and duct tape, and then placed the first victim in the back seat of his vehicle while the second victim lay on the ground supported the necessary element of movement for the kidnapping with bodily injury convictions.

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A jury convicted Amin Dennis of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, and other crimes in connection with the deaths of Jerry Lee Lawrence and Harold Reese, Jr.1 On appeal, Dennis contends that he did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily make his statement to police. Because the trial court correctly ruled that Dennis’s statement was voluntary and admissible, we affirm the convictions.

1. The State presented evidence at trial that Dennis and his brother and co-defendant, Corey Dennis, had been watching Reese’s house for weeks. In the early morning hours of August, 26, 2009, they followed Reese and Lawrence to the 1800 block of Blackshear Road in Crisp County, Georgia, and parked behind Reese’s brown Ford Explorer on the side of the road. The brothers ambushed the two men, pulled them from the vehicle, bound them with black electrical ties, and placed duct tape over their mouths and eyes. They put Reese in the back seat of his vehicle while Lawrence lay on the ground. When Dennis asked Reese what his life was worth, Reese offered to pay $3,000, which he said was all the cash he had. Dennis searched the Explorer for money, but found none in it. Lawrence was shot first. Reese then escaped from the car and began to run away, but fell as the brothers chased him. Reese got back to his feet, charged for the gun, was shot in the chest, and fell to the ground, where he was shot again. Dennis and his brother wiped down Reese’s Explorer with a cleaning solution, placed Lawrence in the back seat, let the vehicle roll into the cotton field, and set it on fire. As they were driving back to Dennis’s house, he threw his revolver into the woods. They started a fire in his yard and spent a couple of hours burning cell phones, a wallet, their socks and shoes, a roll of duct tape, electrical ties, a towel, and a bottle of carpet cleanser. The brothers’ first cousin saw Dennis pouring lighter fluid on a fire in front of his house around 3 a.m. that day.

Dennis v. State

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