Gregory Ricketts appeals his convictions for the malice murder of his wife, Sharla Ricketts, and for intercepting communications which invade the privacy of another. He claims that his convictions must be reversed because his motion to suppress was improperly denied; venue was not pled in the bill of indictment; closing argument was improperly limited to one hour; trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the one-hour limitation of closing argument; the trial court’s instruction to the jury was erroneous; he was not present at a critical stage of the trial; and the trial court communicated with the jury foreperson to the exclusion of the other jurors. Finding that Ricketts’s claims of error fail to provide a basis for the reversal of his convictions, we affirm.1 The evidence construed in favor of the verdicts showed the following: Gregory Ricketts “Ricketts” and Sharla Ricketts were married in August 1994. Ricketts was part owner of an adult entertainment club in Athens, and met Sharla when she was employed as a waitress at the club. After the two were married, Sharla went to work as a dancer in an adult entertainment club in Cobb County. The two had financial problems, and Ricketts tried a number of business ventures. Sharla became disgruntled with their circumstances, including their involvement in adult entertainment. Several times, beginning in mid-December 1995, Ricketts discussed with his friend Green that he and Sharla were having marital difficulties. Ricketts told Green that he had secretly placed a recording device on their home telephone and that Sharla was having an affair with a man named “Sam.” Ricketts and Sharla discussed her affair with “Sam,” as well as separation. Green spoke with Ricketts after Christmas, and it was Green’s understanding that Sharla had moved out of the couple’s home and was staying with relatives until a decision about the marriage was made. In a subsequent conversation, Ricketts indicated to Green that he thought they were going to work things out. Ricketts continued the clandestine telephone recordings. On January 4, 1996, Ricketts and Sharla spent the evening together. Earlier that day Ricketts had telephoned Sharla’s mother and discussed the extramarital affair; he told the mother that he could not “control” Sharla. Ricketts admittedly was angry with Sharla. Ricketts brought his .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol into the house. At 11:53 p.m. on January 4, 1996, a neighbor of the Rickettses heard gunshots and saw that the lights were on at the Rickettses’ house. Around midnight Green received a telephone page from the Rickettses’ home. He returned the page and Ricketts told him that he had shot Sharla; Ricketts stated that “he could not go to prison and that he was a corpse.” Green checked out of the hotel where he was staying, and telephoned the Rickettses’ home again at about 1:30 a.m. Ricketts was at the home with his best friend whom Ricketts had telephoned right after the shooting. In the discussion, Green determined that the police had not been called. Green drove to the Rickettses’ home, notifying the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office while he was on the way.
A detective with the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office was dispatched to the Rickettses’ home about 2:00 a.m.; other officers were already there and Ricketts was in the back seat of a patrol car. Sharla’s body was lying on the floor in the house, close to a dining table, with her head pointing toward a kitchen countertop. She had been shot five times and died as a result of multiple gunshot injuries. Some of the bullets entered Sharla as she was standing with her arms in front of her. One bullet entered her right arm, exited the other side, and reentered her chest. She was shot twice in the left arm. She also sustained a gunshot wound to the left side of the head; Sharla was shot while “the muzzle of the gun was against her head.” The wounds to the arms and upper body would not have caused a loss of consciousness, but the shot to the left side of the head would have led to an immediate loss of consciousness. Two bullets were removed from Sharla’s body during the autopsy.
