Johnson v. State

Following a jury trial, Frederick Darnell Johnson appeals his convictions for felony murder and cruelty to children, arguing that he received ineffective assistance of counsel and that the trial court erred by not recharging the jury on the affirmative defenses of accident and reasonable discipline of a minor.1 We affirm. 1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the record shows that, in the early morning hours of July 3, 2003, Johnson picked up twenty-one month old Jeannetta Denise Adams, shook her, and slammed her head into a wall. At the time, Johnson was living with the victim and her mother, Kimberly Denise Jones. Johnson left the apartment before Ms. Jones called 911, and he threatened to kill her and their son if she told investigators the truth. Initially, Ms. Jones told investigators that the victim’s injuries resulted from an accident, but in January 2004, Ms. Jones gave a written statement to investigators claiming that she witnessed Johnson intentionally slam the victim’s head into the wall.

At trial, the parties stipulated to the admission of the results of Johnson’s polygraph examination, which revealed that Johnson was being deceptive when he told police that the victim’s injuries resulted from her merely slipping out of his grasp when he was holding her. Also, expert testimony revealed that the traumatic head injuries that caused the child’s death resulted, not from an accident, but from a person violently shaking the child and making the child’s head hit “some objects at least once.” Further, Ms. Jones testified that she witnessed Johnson slam the child’s head into a wall.