Wise v. State

Summary

The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed Tamario Wise’s convictions arising from a crime spree involving murder, armed robbery, rape, and other offenses. The court rejected challenges concerning the sufficiency of evidence for an armed robbery conviction, an alleged suggestive in-court identification, prosecutorial argument, and the admission of MetroPCS cell-phone records under the Confrontation Clause. All justices concurred.

Holdings

1. The evidence was sufficient to support the conviction because Detective Velasquez identified Angela Fox as one of the victims present at the home invasion, notwithstanding that Fox did not testify and Heredia did not name her in his testimony.
2. The trial court did not err in allowing the witness to testify that Wise was similar in height to one of the assailants because the witness did not identify Wise as the robber and the questioning ultimately aided Wise's defense.
3. The trial court properly denied the motions for mistrial and admonishment because the prosecutor merely restated a comment made by Veal's own attorney, and independent evidence supported the inference that Veal committed the rape.
4. The cell-phone records were admissible because the MetroPCS records custodian who compiled and assessed the records was present at trial and available for cross-examination.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support Wise's conviction for the armed robbery of Angela Fox's wedding ring when Fox did not testify and Heredia did not identify her by name in his testimony.
2. Whether allowing a co-defendant's attorney to ask a witness to compare Wise's height with that of an assailant constituted an impermissibly suggestive one-on-one identification.
3. Whether the prosecutor's reference during opening argument to a co-defendant's admission to a rape required a mistrial or an admonition to the jury.
4. Whether MetroPCS cell-phone records were inadmissible under the Confrontation Clause because the records custodian who compiled them was not the analyst who made the underlying determinations.

Disposition

affirmed