Profet v. State

Christopher Profet was convicted by a Fulton County jury of murder, armed robbery, and other crimes after Latonya Morris-Figg was shot to death in a rural area in 2014. The two had been romantically involved, and evidence showed Profet was with her shortly before her death, that she had cashed $1,200 in money orders to buy a car, and that no cash, purse, or money orders were found near her body. Profet appealed, arguing the evidence was too weak to support his convictions, that the trial judge should have gotten an on-record waiver of his right to testify, blocked him from pursuing a theory that police didn't properly investigate, wrongly allowed an expert to testify about shoe print impressions, and let the jury view enlarged shoe print photos during deliberations. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected every argument. It held the evidence, including Profet's sudden access to cash the day after the killing and inconsistent statements to investigators, was enough to support the armed robbery conviction, and that the other claims were either abandoned for lack of argument or failed on the merits. The court affirmed his convictions and sentences.

The court held that the circumstantial evidence, including the victim's cashed money orders, missing cash and purse, and the defendant's sudden unexplained access to money the next day, was sufficient to sustain the armed robbery conviction, and that none of the defendant's other claims of trial error showed reversible error.

The ruling reaffirms that Georgia juries may convict based on circumstantial evidence like suspicious behavior and unexplained cash, and clarifies that older, pre-2022 expert-testimony rules, not the newer Daubert standard, govern plain-error review of trials held before July 1, 2022.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the constitutional sufficiency standard from Jackson v. Virginia, which asks whether a rational jury, viewing evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and also Georgia's circumstantial evidence rule (OCGA § 24-14-6), which requires the evidence to exclude every other reasonable explanation besides guilt.
2. Applying those standards, the court found that the victim's plan to cash money orders and buy a car, the absence of any cash or money orders near her body, and the defendant's sudden unexplained access to money the next day let the jury reasonably conclude he took her money rather than she spent it on a car.
3. The court found several claims, including challenges to the murder and firearm-possession convictions and to the trial court's exclusion of certain investigative evidence, were abandoned because Profet's brief failed to include the required argument, citations to authority, and record citations under Supreme Court Rule 22.
4. On the claim about not testifying, the court explained that under existing precedent a trial judge has no general duty to question a defendant on the record about waiving the right to testify, since that choice is a tactical decision left to the defendant and his lawyer, so there was no error.
5. Reviewing the shoe-print expert testimony only for plain error because no objection was raised at trial, the court applied the evidentiary rules in effect at the time of Profet's 2017 trial (the Harper standard) rather than the newer Daubert standard adopted in 2022, and found existing precedent already treats shoe-impression comparison as not requiring formal scientific-expert qualification, so there was no clear error.
6. The court held the continuing-witness rule, which normally keeps written statements from being reread by a jury during deliberations, does not apply to photographs because photos are not written testimony dependent on a witness's credibility, so letting the jury view enlarged shoe-print photos in the courtroom was proper.

• murder conviction
• armed robbery
• circumstantial evidence
• shoe print expert testimony
• continuing-witness rule