A Gwinnett County jury found Paul Grindle guilty of robbery, OCGA § 16-8-40 a; aggravated battery, OCGA § 16-5-24 a; and battery, OCGA § 16-5-23.1 a. Pursuant to a granted motion for an out-of-time appeal, Grindle contends his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the hearsay testimony of an accomplice who identified him as the robber. Grindle also contends that, absent this inadmissible hearsay, the evidence adduced was insufficient to prove him guilty of the crimes charged beyond a reasonable doubt. For the reasons that follow, we reverse based on a finding of ineffective assistance of trial counsel; however, we find that the evidence adduced was sufficient to support Grindle’s convictions. 1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict,1 the record reveals the following facts. At about 11 p.m. on November 24, 2001, a woman and her daughter walked from a Gwinnett County Walmart store to their parked car. As the woman neared the car, a man ran by her and grabbed her purse. Because the woman’s purse was entangled in the bags she was carrying, the robber was unable to snatch it away easily. He yanked the purse from the woman’s arm so hard that he knocked her face-down to the pavement. The woman suffered a broken arm, a bruised face, and a damaged eye. The woman told police that she had a pager, a day-timer, some keys, and a diamond ring in her purse. The ring had three diamonds on it, and a prong securing one of the diamonds in place was broken. Although the woman and her daughter did not see the robber’s face, they could tell that he was a white male, and they saw him get into the front passenger side of an older, “boxy,” light-colored car with two other people in it, a driver and a back-seat passenger.
As the robbery was occurring, a man and two of his friends were walking out of the Walmart. The man heard screams, heard someone say a purse-snatching had just occurred, and saw a person run and get into a car that sped away. The man considered pursuing the car, but decided that because the driver had too much of a lead, he could not catch up. So, he got in his car and started driving home. As the man drove down Interstate 985, he came upon a car like the one he had seen leaving the Walmart. The car was traveling slowly, at about 45 miles per hour, and its interior light was on. The man slowed down to pace the car, and he looked inside it. He saw three people in the car: a long-haired driver; a shirtless, front-seat passenger with a “roundish” tattoo high on his left shoulder; and a back-seat passenger wearing a grey, flannel shirt. All three were looking toward the front passenger’s seat, peering into a purse. After observing this, the man drove past the car and called his friends, who were traveling on the freeway behind him. He asked his friends to get the car’s tag number. The friend who got the tag number noticed that the driver was female. After getting the tag number, the man and his friends went back to the Walmart and told the police what they had observed.
