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Alvarez v. State

Exigent circumstances justified an officer's entry into the backyard of a home where an armed man was possibly present, and the officer was engaged in the lawful discharge of his duties when, seeing the defendant standing face-first against an outbuilding with his hands concealed in a baggy jacket, he instructed the defendant to display his hands and stop advancing.

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Juan Alvarez, Jr., was convicted of one count of felony obstruction of an officer1 and two counts of the lesser included offense of misdemeanor obstruction of an officer.2 Alvarez appeals, following the denial of his motion for new trial, arguing that the trial court erred by admitting hearsay evidence and denying his motion for a directed verdict on that ground. He also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence and contends that the trial court’s jury charge was erroneous. We affirm, for reasons that follow. Construed in favor of the verdict,3 the evidence shows that Sergeant Shane Presgraves was on patrol during the early morning hours of November 10, 2007, when he received a call from dispatch about a “suspicious,” “bleeding” person on Baker Road in Hall County. Presgraves proceeded to the area, where he found Juan Manual Sosa walking along Baker Road. Sosa smelled of alcohol, and he was bleeding from his nose and mouth, and had a small laceration above his eye. Sosa told the officer that he had been “beaten up” at his home at 3234 Baker Road. Although Sosa did not identify the man, he told Presgraves that his assailant stated that “the police was sic no problem” and demonstrated that “he had a gun for the police.”

Presgraves and at least four additional officers proceeded to Sosa’s residence, and Presgraves and Deputy Chad Suttles knocked on the front door of the trailer. At the same time, Officer Jeremy Orme, who was armed with a shotgun loaded with bean bags, approached the right side of the trailer4 and observed approximately 50 to 100 plastic cups and beer bottles in the yard. Orme also saw several people standing “towards the back of the trailer” and several more “coming out from the back of house”; at least four to six people began quickly walking towards the woods once they spotted the police.

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