Morris v. State

Defense counsel's failure to object to an officer's cumulative and immaterial hearsay testimony was harmless.

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Herman Morris and two co-defendants were tried before a jury on an indictment charging them with murder of Roderick Davis and related crimes. The jury found all three guilty of malice murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. The trial court sentenced them to life imprisonment for the homicide and to consecutive varying terms of years for the remaining offenses. Morris’ co-defendants appealed, and their convictions and sentences were affirmed. McKenzie v. State , 274 Ga. 151 549 SE2d 337 2001. After the denial of his motion for new trial, Morris appeals from the judgments of convictions and sentences entered on the jury’s verdicts finding him guilty.1 1. The State’s evidence showed that the crimes arose out of a dispute over a drug deal in which Davis sold contraband that Morris believed was of inferior quality. Morris, along with the two accomplices, kidnapped Davis. They drove to a remote area, where the victim was shot several times. Construed most strongly in support of the guilty verdicts, the evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find proof of Morris’ guilt of murder and the related crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979; McKenzie v. State , supra at 152 1. 2. The jury charge included an instruction which tracked the language of the aggravated assault statute in its entirety. Morris urges that giving this instruction was erroneous, because the indictment did not allege the commission of aggravated assault in all of the ways enumerated in OCGA § 16-5-21. When his co-defendants made the same assertion,

we reminded trial courts, as we have before, that the better practice is to conform a charge to the evidence in order to avoid confusing the jury. A review of the record in this case, however, shows that there was no possibility that the jury was misled by reading the entire statute. Cit. McKenzie v. State , supra at 152 2.

Morris v. State

Defense counsel's failure to object to an officer's cumulative and immaterial hearsay testimony was harmless.

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