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Smith v. State

The trial court did not violate O.C.G.A. § 17-8-57, after the defense put venue into question, when the trial judge instructed the state to call another witness, limited the scope of that witnesses' testimony to the issue of venue and propounded its own questions to the witness in an effort to ascertain where the alleged crime took place.

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Braja Smith was convicted by a jury of felony theft by shoplifting. He appeals following the trial court’s denial of his motion for new trial. The evidence shows that on the afternoon of June 14, 2008, an unidentified man with dreadlocks, wearing a white t-shirt entered the Wal-Mart in Loganville. Shortly thereafter, Sean Harris entered the Wal-Mart and met up with the unidentified man in the electronics department. Harris retrieved a shopping cart, and the two men placed a computer into it. A Wal-Mart employee saw them remove the security device from the packaging and wheel the cart to another department, where they opened the computer box. The unidentified man then pushed the cart past the cash registers and left it at the front of the store. He exited the store hand-in-hand with a little girl and did not return.

A short time later, Harris re-entered the Wal-Mart with Smith and directed him to the shopping cart with the computer at the front of the store. Smith pushed the cart to the service desk, accompanied by Harris. Mertoni Collins, the customer service manager, was working at the service desk when Smith arrived with the computer and said that he wanted to return it. Collins told Smith that he needed a receipt and a sticker from the greeter in order to make a return. She told him that she could not get him a sticker, but she could walk him to the store entrance where a sticker could be obtained. Smith followed Collins to the entrance where she proceeded to walk out of the store. Smith was apprehended by Wal-Mart loss prevention officers as he attempted to follow her out.1

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