Benjamin Tinno Hill was indicted for the malice murder of Tommy Lee Head, an alternative count of felony murder during the commission of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and a separate count charging the underlying weapons offense. After a jury trial, Hill was acquitted of malice murder and found guilty of both remaining counts. The trial court entered judgments of conviction on the guilty verdicts and sentenced Hill to life imprisonment for felony murder and to a consecutive five-year term for the separate firearms charge. Following the grant of an out-of-time appeal, a motion for new trial was denied. However, the trial court vacated the separate sentence on the weapons charge pursuant to a concession by the State. Hill appeals, understandably raising no error regarding the vacated sentence. See Dunn v. State , 263 Ga. 343, 345 2 434 SE2d 60 1993. 1. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that Hill, who was a convicted felon, was driving a vehicle carrying his infant son and Flora Shepherd when the victim began following them. Ms. Shepherd was the baby’s mother and the victim’s girlfriend. Hill became increasingly upset, indicating that he would lead the victim to some apartments and shoot him. Hill saw a patrol car and turned around to travel in the opposite direction. Hill stopped at a traffic light, and the unarmed victim exited his vehicle and approached Ms. Shepherd, angrily cursing at her, but kept his hands in his pockets and took no threatening action. The victim’s demeanor changed and, as he began to get back into his car, he was shot in his pelvis. Ms. Shepherd turned to see Hill with a gun in his hand pointed across her and out the window. The victim drove away, crashed into a guardrail and bled to death from the gunshot wound. Meanwhile, Hill also drove away, told Ms. Shepherd twice that he hated that he shot the victim, and abandoned her and the baby with the car. Hill later asked Ms. Shepherd if she was going to tell on him. Nearly a year later, Hill was found in Texas living under an assumed name.
Hill argues that no evidence was presented at trial that the person who was arrested and tried is the same as the person named in the indictment and identified by witnesses as someone named Benjamin Hill who shot and killed the victim. However, Hill could not be directly identified in person by any witness at trial, because after jury selection, he “voluntarily absented himself from his trial. He should not be allowed to profit from this action by winning a reversal of the conviction because he was not there.” Smith v. State , 184 Ga. App. 739, 741 362 SE2d 384 1987. Hill “made positive identification impossible by absenting himself from trial, and we decline to create a rigid legal standard for identification that would encourage defendants to violate their release conditions by failing to appear.” State v. Rocha-Rocha , 935 P2d 870, 873 1 Ariz. App. 1996. In this case, Hill gave the arresting officer a statement admitting that he had shot the victim, Hill appeared in court for the first day of trial, and he never made identity an issue at trial, instead asserting self-defense. Accordingly, we conclude that Hill was sufficiently identified as the person who shot the victim and that there was ample evidence to enable a rational trier of fact to find Hill guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of felony murder. Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.
