Bennett v. State

DeMarvin Ladele Bennett was convicted of malice murder and other crimes after he approached 73-year-old Jack Hough, who was sitting alone in his car outside a Gainesville pharmacy, demanded money, and shot him during a struggle over a gun. Bennett appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia after a Hall County trial court denied his motion for a new trial, arguing that the evidence could not support a murder conviction, that the trial court wrongly let jurors hear about his 2012 robbery guilty plea, and that jurors should have been instructed on the defense of accident. The court disagreed on every point. It found fingerprint evidence, Bennett's own recorded confession to investigators, and forensic evidence more than enough to support the conviction. It found that even if letting in the old robbery conviction was a mistake, it did not affect the outcome given the strength of the other evidence. And it held that because Bennett clearly intended to rob and then shot Hough, he was not entitled to an accident instruction.

The evidence, including Bennett's own confession and forensic proof, was constitutionally sufficient to support his malice murder conviction, and even assuming the trial court erred in admitting his 2012 robbery conviction and instructing the jury on it, that error was harmless given the strong independent evidence of his intent to rob Hough. The trial court also correctly refused to instruct the jury on accident because the evidence showed Bennett acted with criminal intent.

The ruling reaffirms that a robbery gone wrong which ends in a killing can support a murder conviction even if the shooting itself was brief or improvised, and that trial courts have latitude to admit a defendant's prior criminal history for limited purposes like proving intent without automatically requiring a new trial.

Affirmed

1. Under the constitutional sufficiency standard from Jackson v. Virginia, which asks whether a rational jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, the court found Bennett's own confession that he approached Hough for money and shot him with Hough's gun was enough to support malice murder.
2. The court explained that malice, the mental state needed for malice murder, can form in an instant, and evidence that Hough was shot while leaning away from the window supported an inference that he was trying to escape, which showed malice.
3. Bennett's inconsistent statements to police, his flight from the scene, and his hiding of the gun and clothing further supported the jury's finding of guilt, since courts have found such conduct probative of a guilty mind in similar cases.
4. On the admission of Bennett's 2012 robbery guilty plea, offered to show his intent to rob Hough under Georgia's other-acts evidence rule (Rule 404(b), which limits using past crimes to prove bad character but allows them for narrower purposes like intent), the court applied harmless-error review rather than deciding whether admitting it was actually wrong.
5. Because Bennett's own recorded statements about lying in wait in a dark part of the parking lot and demanding '$25' from Hough independently proved his intent to rob, the court concluded any error in admitting the old conviction or instructing the jury about it was harmless.
6. On the accident defense, the court applied the rule that a jury instruction on accident is unavailable once the evidence shows the defendant acted with criminal intent or was engaged in a criminal scheme, and found that Bennett's admitted robbery attempt and demand for money meant accident could not apply.

• malice murder conviction
• robbery gone wrong
• prior conviction evidence
• jury instruction on accident
• fingerprint identification