Johnson v. State

Luther Johnson was found guilty by a Decatur County jury of two counts of burglary, possession of tools for the commission of a crime, and obstruction of a law enforcement officer with violence. He appeals, asserting the general grounds only as to one count of burglary of a garden center and the count charging possession of tools for the commission of a crime. The evidence was sufficient under the standard of Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979, and we affirm. Construed in favor of the jury’s verdict, the evidence shows that police officers surprised Johnson in the process of burglarizing a car dealership in the early morning hours of December 21, 2005, and subdued him after a lengthy struggle. A pair of gloves fell out of Johnson’s pocket during the struggle. A hammer was found lying outside the shattered glass in the front door of the business.

The same morning, at about 8:00, the owner of a garden center two doors down from the car dealership opened the business and discovered that it had been burglarized. The business had been entered by breaking out a window in a door. The owner identified the gloves that fell from Johnson’s pocket as having come from his store. He also found another glove from the store lying on the floor near the bathroom; this glove bore a shoe print. The assistant manager of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations crime lab was qualified as an expert in the field of impressions analysis. He testified that he compared the shoe print on the glove with a pair of boots worn by Johnson at the time of his arrest. He concluded that the impression was made by that pair of boots or another pair of boots with a similar tread design and size.