In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: October 19, 2021
S21A1014. JONES v. THE STATE.
MCMILLIAN, Justice.
Steven Jamal Jones appeals his convictions for malice murder,
aggravated assault, and other offenses arising in connection with
the death of Quincey Denton and the assault of Kenneth Studivant.1
1 The crimes occurred on June 16, 2012, and on August 6, 2013, a Ware
County grand jury indicted Jones on one count of malice murder (Count 1), one
count of felony murder (Count 2), two counts of aggravated assault (Count 3
for the aggravated assault of Denton and Count 4 for the aggravated assault
of Studivant), and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission
of a crime, based on the aggravated assaults (Counts 5 and 6). Jones was tried
from November 13 to 15, 2013, and the jury convicted him on all counts. The
trial judge sentenced Jones to life imprisonment for malice murder; twenty
years in prison, to run consecutively to Count 1, for the aggravated assault of
Studivant; and a five-year term of imprisonment on each of the possession
counts, with the sentence on Count 5 to run consecutively to Count 4 and the
sentence on Count 6 to run consecutively to Count 5. The other aggravated
assault count was merged into Count 1, and the felony murder count was
vacated by operation of law.
Jones filed a timely motion for new trial on December 11, 2013, which
was amended by new counsel on October 7, 2019. After a hearing, during which
the parties agreed to submit the motion for new trial to the trial court on
briefing, the trial court denied the motion on September 3, 2020. Jones filed a
Jones argues on appeal that the evidence was insufficient to support
his convictions and that the trial court erred in denying his motion
for mistrial after the admission of allegedly improper character
evidence during the State’s case. As these contentions have no merit,
we affirm.
In June 2012, Denton was living in one side of a duplex in
Waycross with his girlfriend, Angela Williams, and her seven-year-
old son, M. F. Studivant lived on the other side of the duplex.
At around 9:15 p.m. on June 16, Rhoda and Willie White were
driving home from the grocery store when they saw Jones, whom
they knew, and a man they did not know walking near their home,
which was around the corner from Denton’s duplex. Jones and the
other man were dressed in dark or black clothing. Willie testified
that Rhoda spoke to Jones and Jones responded. Jones did not live
in the neighborhood, and Willie had never seen him there before.
The same night, Williams’s mother, Katrina Lane, and her husband,
timely appeal to this Court, and the case was docketed to the August 2021 term
of court and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
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Bernard Davis, who lived across the street from the duplex, were
attending a birthday party for M. F. at Denton’s house when they
saw two men dressed in black, one short and the other tall, walking
back and forth near the house. Lane had never seen the two men
before. One witness testified that Jones was approximately 6 feet to
6 feet, 1 inch tall.
Williams left the duplex at around 10:30 p.m. that night,
leaving Denton, M. F., and a friend at the house. The friend later
left, and, at some point, Studivant walked outside onto the porch of
the duplex to smoke a cigarette. As Studivant was sitting outside,
two armed men approached, grabbed him, and forced him into
Denton’s side of the duplex through the front door. When the men
entered the duplex, M. F. was lying on the sofa in the front room
watching television. M. F. testified that the intruders were armed
and wearing sunglasses with scarves over their mouths. One was
short, and the other was tall. After the men walked past M. F., he
fled out the front door and ran to Lane’s house across the street.
Meanwhile, the two men forced Studivant into a bedroom
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where Denton was watching television. They made Denton and
Studivant kneel on the floor and lie face-down across the bed with
their hands on the bed. Studivant heard one of the men direct the
other to “hit him, hit him, hit him,” and then heard a commotion,
but Studivant testified that he was scared and “didn’t dare move.”
Lane called 911 after M. F. told her what had happened, and
M. F. testified that while he was at Lane’s house, he heard a
gunshot. Both Lane and Davis stepped outside to see what was
happening. From her porch, Lane saw a person, whom she described
as short, run out the side door of the duplex toward some nearby
bushes. She then saw a taller person “busting out” the front door,
breaking it, and heading toward the same area. Davis heard
someone beating on the front door and also saw someone wearing
dark clothing break through the front door and run away.
After the noise died down, Studivant got up and saw Denton
lying on the bed with blood around him. Studivant left the duplex
through the front door and told Davis, who was outside on his front
porch, that Denton had been shot. Lane then asked the 911 operator
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to send an ambulance.
Willie White, who was home cooking at the time, heard
gunshots and the sounds of someone running. He looked out his door
and, from the light on Denton’s porch, saw two people running – one
of whom he recognized as Jones, who was still wearing dark clothes.
The two men were running from Denton’s house toward a nearby
trail through a wooded area. Although Willie failed to pick Jones out
of a police lineup as the man he saw that night, Willie testified at
trial that when police officers showed him the lineup with Jones’s
picture, he chose not to identify Jones because he does not “judge
people,” and he did not “want to be the one to pass judgment.”
When law enforcement officers responded to the scene of the
shooting, they discovered Denton on his knees lying face down
across the bed. He was unresponsive, with no pulse, and had two
small wounds to his head and a gunshot wound to his chest. The
coroner later pronounced him dead at the scene. The area around
Denton’s house was searched, leading to the discovery of a black
Rossi .38-caliber revolver, which appeared to have been recently
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tossed in some tall grass in a field near the wooded area where
witnesses said the intruders ran. One shot had been fired from the
revolver, and the weapon’s four remaining chambers contained live
rounds.
At trial, the medical examiner testified that the gunshot wound
was the cause of Denton’s death and that the wounds to his head
were consistent with Denton having been “pistol whipped.” The
medical examiner was able to retrieve the fatal bullet from Denton’s
body. Later testing by the GBI determined that the bullet recovered
from Denton’s body had been fired from the .38-caliber revolver
recovered near Denton’s house, and DNA samples taken from the
grip of the gun were a match for Jones’s DNA.
Later on the night of the shooting, Steven Clerge learned that
Denton had been shot, and he and a friend drove to the scene of the
shooting. They did not stay long, and after they left, they
encountered Jones walking down the road right around the corner
from the murder scene. Jones, who was wearing a black shirt and
dark pants, got in their car. Clerge described Jones as “acting off”
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that night – “like he had a lot on his mind.” When Jones got in the
car, he was fidgeting and talking to himself in the back seat. The
three men later returned to the crime scene, but Jones got “antsy”
when someone said something about a warrant, and he offered
Clerge $10 to drive him to Jones’s girlfriend’s house. When they got
back in the car, Jones did not say where his girlfriend lived, but
instead kept directing Clerge where to turn, and they ended up
circling the crime scene twice before Jones eventually asked Clerge
to drop him somewhere else. They never made it to the girlfriend’s
house.
Jones was ultimately arrested for Denton’s murder based on
witness statements that they had seen him in the area around the
time of the shooting and later fleeing from the scene and the match
between his DNA and the samples taken from the grip of the murder
weapon.
At trial, the defense presented testimony from Jerome Martin,
who said he was with Jones for “a couple of minutes” on the night of
the murder. Martin testified that a .38-caliber weapon shown to him
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by a police detective looked like a gun that a man tried to sell to
Jones and him that night. Both Martin and Jones handled the
weapon, and Jones held it by its grip. But, Martin testified that they
decided not to buy the gun. However, the State presented evidence
that the DNA recovered from the murder weapon contained only one
DNA profile, which was compared with DNA samples provided by
Martin and Jones, and it matched only Jones’s DNA sample.
1. Jones argues that even giving all proper deference to the
jury’s resolution of conflicts in the testimony, no rational factfinder
could conclude that he committed the crimes in this case.
In reviewing Jones’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence
to support his convictions as a matter of constitutional due process,
we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and
consider whether any rational trier of fact could have found him
guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S.
307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). “Our limited
review under the standard set out in Jackson leaves to the jury the
resolution of conflicts in the testimony, the weight of the evidence,
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the credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to be made
from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Menzies v. State, 304 Ga. 156, 160
(II) (816 SE2d 638) (2018) (citation and punctuation omitted).
Jones was seen in the vicinity before the crimes occurred, and
a witness spotted him fleeing from the crime scene and running
toward a wooded area near Denton’s house immediately after the
witness heard gunshots. The revolver that fired the fatal gunshot
was located in a field near that wooded area, and Jones’s DNA was
found on the grip of the gun. His height and clothing matched the
descriptions provided by witnesses. We conclude that this and other
evidence presented at trial, although circumstantial, was strong and
more than sufficient to support Jones’s convictions in this case. See
Carson v. State, 308 Ga. 761, 764 (1) (843 SE2d 421) (2020) (DNA
and other evidence placing defendant in vicinity of crime before and
after murder, though circumstantial, was sufficient to support
convictions); Carter v. State, 289 Ga. 51, 52 (1) (709 SE2d 223) (2011)
(circumstantial evidence showing that defendant matched
eyewitness’s description of one of the two gunmen and defendant’s
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fingerprints were found on the outside of the car used in the crimes
was sufficient to support his convictions).
2. Jones also contends that the trial court erred in not granting
a mistrial when he says his character was improperly put before the
jury during the direct examination of a witness for the State.
During the State’s examination of Jones’s girlfriend, who
appeared at trial as a prosecution witness, she testified that she and
Jones had gotten a room at a local motel the day after the shooting.
After Jones’s girlfriend denied that she and Jones had discussed
Denton’s murder, the prosecutor asked her what they talked about
while at the motel. She replied that they talked about “what [they]
always talked about.” Then, in response to the prosecutor’s question
asking what that was, she said that she and Jones were just
spending time together “because we knew he had to turn himself in
for probation.”
At that point, Jones’s counsel moved for a mistrial, arguing
that the damage from Jones’s girlfriend’s testimony could not be
cured. Further colloquy outside the presence of the jury revealed
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that Jones was on probation at the time for misdemeanor disorderly
conduct, and Jones’s counsel was permitted to question Jones’s
girlfriend about her knowledge of the circumstances of that
probation.
The trial court denied the mistrial, finding that the
prosecution’s question “was not leading to intentionally elicit that
response; that it was just . . . a spontaneous response by the witness,
perhaps inadvertent.” But the trial court acknowledged that the
testimony raised an issue as to Jones’s character and offered to give
a curative instruction to the jury. Defense counsel replied that he
“would either ask for a curative instruction or else inform the jury
about the nature of the probation.” After weighing these options,
trial counsel first asked for a curative instruction but later changed
his mind and said he did not want an instruction and instead would
cross-examine the witness about the circumstances surrounding
Jones’s probation. After the jury returned, defense counsel elicited
testimony that Jones was on probation for six months for disorderly
conduct, that a warrant was issued because he failed to complete his
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GED, a condition of the probation, and that Jones turned himself in
to the police.
On appeal, Jones again asserts that there was no way to cure
the harm arising from his girlfriend’s testimony, and because the
evidence against him was not substantial or overwhelming, he is
entitled to a new trial. But we need not decide if the trial court
abused its discretion in denying the motion for mistrial because
Jones waived his right to raise the issue on appeal when his trial
counsel affirmatively declined the trial court’s offer to give a curative
instruction. See Stephens v. State, 307 Ga. 731, 740 (5) (b) (838 SE2d
275) (2020) (defendant cannot complain on appeal about the denial
of his motion for mistrial “because his counsel affirmatively
informed the court that [the defense] did not want a curative
instruction to be given” and thus waived the issue for appellate
review); Brewer v. State, 301 Ga. 819, 820 (2) (804 SE2d 410) (2017)
(“Given that [the defendant] declined the court’s offer to give a
curative instruction with regard to the statement, . . . . [he] has
waived his right to complain about the trial court’s [refusal to grant
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his motion for mistrial].” (citation omitted)). Because Jones waived
the issue for appellate review, this enumeration of error presents
nothing for us to consider.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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