Moore v. State

Calvin Moore appeals his conviction for malice murder in connection with the death of 63-year-old Lucius Harris, Jr. Although we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support Appellant’s conviction, the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce similar transaction evidence without conducting the hearing required by Uniform Superior Court Rule 31.3 B and making the necessary findings on the record. See Williams v. State , 261 Ga. 640, 642 & n.3 409 SE2d 649 1991. Accordingly, we vacate the trial court’s judgment and remand the case for a Rule 31.3 hearing and the entry of proper findings or, if need be, a new trial.1 1. The evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, showed the following. Appellant moved in with the victim in June or July of 2003. On occasion, Appellant was seen slapping or hitting the victim. On the evening of June 10, 2004, the victim’s cousin, Angela Horton, visited him at his house. Horton observed that the victim had a busted lip, his knees were skinned, he had blood on his boxer shorts, and he could barely talk. Appellant was home at the time and told Horton that he was tired of the victim stealing his money and smoking his dope and he was going to beat the victim to death and leave his body on the railroad track so that it could not be identified after a train ran over it. Not thinking that Appellant was serious, Horton left and went to work.

That night, Robert Cook, who was then homeless, was camping on an abandoned street by a railroad track. Sometime after 3:00 a.m., Cook saw a large man carrying a body on his shoulders emerge from the bushes. The man put the body down on the ground by a fence before walking over to Cook and asking him what he was doing there. The man then snatched Cook’s backpack out of his hand, pulled Cook to the ground, and held Cook down with his hands around Cook’s neck. The man let Cook go after Cook said that he “wouldn’t say nothing” about what he had seen; when the man looked the other way, Cook ran to a nearby convenience store, where he called 911 at 3:54 a.m.