Kevon Whitehead and Raldane Gordon were jointly indicted for various crimes, including malice murder, relating to the shooting death of Horace Napier.1 Whitehead went to trial and was found guilty on all counts. On appeal, he contends that this Court should abandon its unusual rule that a defendant who objects and obtains a ruling on the admissibility of similar transaction evidence at a hearing held pursuant to Uniform Superior Court Rule 31.3 B waives appeal of the issue unless he repeats the same objection when the evidence is offered at trial. Whitehead also contends that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of a similar transaction at his trial. We agree that our rule regarding objection to similar transaction evidence should conform to our rule for objecting to other types of evidence, but we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence at issue. We therefore affirm. 1. Construed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows that Oral Anderson, who was a close friend of Napier’s, owned a clothing store in DeKalb County with a studio in the back for recording Jamaican music. On November 5, 2007, Anderson was in the recording studio when he saw Whitehead and Gordon arrive. Whitehead and Gordon were there to sell marijuana to “Redman.” After taking the marijuana from Whitehead, Redman left without paying but told Whitehead that he would return shortly.
When Redman did not return promptly, Whitehead became angry. Anderson and other witnesses saw Whitehead, who was a convicted felon, with a handgun and later with an AK-47 rifle. Whitehead threatened to kidnap a bystander, but Anderson talked him out of it. Whitehead was loud and his demeanor was angry and threatening. Shortly thereafter, Napier and an unknown man arrived at the studio. Gordon pushed the man and then hit the man with his gun. Right after that, Anderson heard a shot fired from the direction of the man, and then more shots were fired and everyone ran. Anderson saw Napier trying to run away. Another witness testified that, after Gordon hit the unknown man, she saw Whitehead come around a corner with the AK-47. The evidence showed that five different guns had been fired at the scene, but the medical examiner determined that the victim died from a rifle wound to his head, and the only rifle shell casings found at the scene were eight fired from the same AK-47.
