CRAWFORD v. STATE (2015)

Appellant Jeremy Crawford was found guilty along with his co-defendant William Lee Shelton of malice murder and robbery by force in connection with the death by strangulation and robbery of Matthew Proctor and was sentenced to life imprisonment.¹ He appeals from the denial of his motion for new trial, and we affirm.

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the evidence presented at trial revealed that appellant and Shelton were riding with the victim in the victim's car when they stopped to look at a covered bridge in Meriwether County. After parking at the bridge, Shelton began strangling the victim with a rope while appellant beat him. Once the victim lost consciousness, the two men placed him in the trunk of his car and drove around Meriwether and Pike counties. At some point, they stopped at a restaurant where a friend, Shannon Giles, noticed blood on appellant's pants. Later that day, appellant and Shelton drove the car to Giles' house in Pike County. While there, appellant told Giles that he and Shelton had killed the victim. Appellant opened the trunk to show Giles the victim's body, at which time Giles heard sounds “like the air was coming out of [the victim's] lungs.” According to Giles' testimony, appellant told her that after he and Shelton strangled and beat the victim at the bridge, they put the victim in the trunk and drove to appellant's mother's boyfriend's house where they “finished him off .” Although Giles stated that appellant told her Shelton used a rope to strangle the victim, another witness testified that appellant told him Shelton had used a belt.

Thereafter, appellant and Shelton hid the victim's body under a boat on Giles' property for three days before retrieving the body and burying it in a Pike County sand pit. Two weeks later, Shelton was driving the victim's car when he was involved in an accident. While investigating the accident, police officers discovered the victim's blood in the car's trunk, and further investigation led to the discovery of the victim's body in Pike County. Upon learning of the accident, appellant told two individuals that he and Shelton had killed the victim and stolen his car and money.

We conclude the evidence was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

2. Appellant claims the trial court committed reversible error when it allowed the State during closing argument to use a rope to demonstrate the act of strangulation followed by four minutes of timed silence representing the amount of time it allegedly took the victim to die.² Appellant objected to the State's demonstrations as irrelevant and inflammatory, but his objections were overruled by the trial court.

The State has broad latitude to demonstrate, as part of its closing argument, that which is authorized by the evidence. See Perry v. State, 274 Ga. 236, 239, 552 S.E.2d 798 (2001). Here, there was evidence presented showing that a rope may have been used to strangle the victim and that it would take a person approximately four minutes to die from strangulation. The State's demonstration, therefore, was authorized by the evidence presented at trial. As such a demonstration was not beyond the bounds of permissible argument, we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's decision allowing the demonstration to proceed. See Norton v. State, 293 Ga. 332, 336, 745 S.E.2d 630 (2013); Braley v. State, 276 Ga. 47, 54, 572 S.E.2d 583 (2002).

3. Nor do we find merit to appellant's claim that the State failed to prove that venue in this case was proper in Pike County.³ While venue is a jurisdictional fact the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt in every criminal case, “the determination of whether venue has been established is an issue soundly within the province of the jury.” Rouse v. State, 296 Ga. 213, 215, 765 S.E.2d 879 (2014). In cases involving criminal homicide, Georgia law provides with respect to venue:

Criminal homicide shall be considered as having been committed in the county in which the cause of death was inflicted. If it cannot be determined in which county the cause of death was inflicted, it shall be considered that it was inflicted in the county in which the death occurred. If a dead body is discovered in this state and it cannot be readily determined in what county the cause of death was inflicted, it shall be considered that the cause of death was inflicted in the county in which the dead body was discovered.

OCGA § 17–2–2(c). Subsection (h) of this statute further provides:

If in any case it cannot be determined in what county a crime was committed, it shall be considered to have been committed in any county in which the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that it might have been committed.

Moreover, the State may establish venue by whatever means of proof are available to it and may use both direct and circumstantial evidence. See Jones v. State, 272 Ga. 900, 902–903, 537 S.E.2d 80 (2000).

Although there may have been conflicting evidence regarding in which county the victim's injuries were inflicted, it was undisputed that the victim's body was found in Pike County. Under these circumstances, the jury was authorized by the evidence to find beyond a reasonable doubt that venue was proper in Pike County. See Shelton, supra, 279 Ga. at 163, 611 S.E.2d 11.

Judgment affirmed.

THOMPSON, Chief Justice.

All the Justices concur.