Chance v. State

Appellant Christopher D. Chance and his co-indictee Raymond Trey Sapp were separately tried for the malice and felony murder of Simpson Tyrone Cates and for other offenses. Appellant was found guilty of criminal attempt to possess cocaine and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, but the jury acquitted him of malice murder and was unable to reach a verdict on felony murder. On retrial, Appellant was found guilty of felony murder during the commission of criminal attempt to possess cocaine. The trial court entered judgments of conviction and sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment for felony murder, a concurrent five-year term for the drug offense, and a consecutive five-year term for the weapons offense. After Sapp’s separate trial, he was convicted of the same offenses, the convictions for felony murder and the firearms count were affirmed on appeal, and the conviction on the drug charge was vacated. Sapp v. State, 290 Ga. 247 719 SE2d 434 2011. Although Appellant filed an untimely motion for new trial, the trial court granted an out-of-time motion for new trial, and Appellant filed an amended motion for new trial within 30 days thereafter. See Fairclough v. State, 276 Ga. 602, 603 1 581 SE2d 3 2003. Compare Hood v. State, 282 Ga. 462, 463, fn. 1 651 SE2d 88 2007. That amended motion for new trial was denied, and Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal.1

1. Appellant contends that the evidence was insufficient and that the trial court therefore should have directed a verdict of acquittal on the felony murder count. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that Appellant regularly purchased illegal drugs from the victim’s cousin Carlos Pressley on a particular rural dirt road. After Pressley arranged for the victim to make a sale of cocaine to Appellant at the same location, Appellant and Sapp arrived there in a pickup truck and stopped next to the victim’s vehicle. Appellant fatally shot the victim in the head with a shotgun through Appellant’s open driver’s side window. Although Appellant testified that Sapp shot the victim, Sapp gave the opposite testimony, and the victim’s DNA was found in bloodstains on the lower left side of Appellant’s shirt. Appellant eventually surrendered to law enforcement after changing his clothes and concealing the murder weapon in a friend’s vehicle.