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S12A0400. LEWIS v. THE STATE
State: Georgia
Court: Supreme Court
Docket No: S12A0400
Case Date: 06/25/2012
Preview:Final Copy 291 Ga. 273 S12A0400. LEWIS v. THE STATE. HINES, Justice. Willie Henry Lewis appeals his convictions for the malice murders of Xavier Dinkins and Kejaun Webb, as well as a variety of other crimes that occurred over a four-day crime spree.1 For the reasons that follow, we affirm

The crimes occurred October 7-10, 2001. On November 16, 2001, a Fulton County grand jury returned a 28-count indictment, naming Lewis in each count; as to some counts, Marquez Miguel Heard was named a co-indictee, as to other counts, Michael Noble was named a co-indictee. The indictment charged Lewis with: the malice murders of both Dinkins and Webb; the felony murders of Dinkins and Webb while in the commission of aggravated assault; the aggravated assaults of Dinkins, Webb, Travis Reid, Antwon Cox, Herbert Cox, Walter Williams, Freddie Perdue, Shavez Givens, Shanta Roman, and Jaboori Denson; the armed robberies of Herbert Cox, Williams, Perdue, Roman, and Denson; the attempted armed robberies of Dinkins, Reid, Antwon Cox, and Givens; three counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of the felony of armed robbery; and two counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of the felony of aggravated assault. Lewis was tried alone before a jury October 13-17, 2003, and found guilty of all charges. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison for the malice murder counts; as to the remaining counts, he was sentenced to various prison terms totaling 165 years, and the guilty verdicts for the crimes of felony murder and the aggravated assaults of Dinkins and Webb either merged with the malice murders or were vacated by operation of law. See Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369, 371-374 (4), (5) (434 SE2d 479) (1993). Lewis moved for a new trial on November 17, 2003, which was denied on February 23, 2005. Lewis filed a notice of appeal on March 31, 2005; his appeal was docketed in this Court on August 19, 2005, and dismissed as untimely on January 17, 2006. On July 31, 2009, Lewis, acting pro se, filed an extraordinary motion for new trial, and on August 7, 2009, again acting pro se, filed a "motion for out of time appeal and appointment of counsel." On February 9, 2010, the trial court entered an order appointing appellate counsel for Lewis, nunc pro tunc November 19, 2009. Lewis filed a motion for an out-of-time appeal on April 27, 2011, which was granted by the trial court on June 24, 2011. Lewis's second notice of appeal was filed on July 18, 2011, his appeal was docketed in this Court for the January 2012 term, and submitted for decision on the briefs.

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in part, vacate in part, and remand. Construed to support the verdicts, the evidence showed that Lewis stole a dark colored Jeep Cherokee in DeKalb County on October 5, 2001, confronting the vehicle's owner, Robert Chandler, with a chrome .357 revolver. On October 7, 2001, Lewis accosted Travis Reid and Xavier Dinkins while they were walking along a street. He pointed a .357 chrome revolver at the two men and told them to lie on the ground. Lewis searched them, and, when he discovered that neither man had any money, said that they had three seconds to run before he would shoot. Both men ran; Lewis began firing, and Dinkins was fatally struck. Lewis then ran toward the Jeep Cherokee he had stolen from Chandler. Later that day, police officers responded to a report of a shooting at an apartment complex. There they found Kejuan Webb, fatally shot. After the shooting, a witness saw a man carrying a .357 chrome revolver running to a Jeep Cherokee like that stolen from Chandler. A bullet recovered from this crime scene was later identified as having been fired from a chrome .357 caliber revolver taken from Lewis's home. On October 8, 2001, Lewis approached Antwon Cox and his younger brother, Herbert Cox, as they walked from Morris Brown College in Fulton
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County. Lewis produced a .357 caliber chrome revolver and told both brothers to lie on the ground. He searched the Cox brothers and found that Herbert had $30, but that Antwon had no money. Lewis told Antwon that he should thank Herbert for the fact that Herbert had some money, because Lewis had shot a person the day before because that victim did not have any money. Nonetheless, Lewis pointed the revolver at Antwon and pulled the trigger. However, the weapon did not fire, and Lewis fled. On October 9, 2001, Freddie Perdue had just left class at Morris Brown College and was standing outside a dormitory on a nearby college campus with Walter Williams and Shavez Givens. Lewis and another man, both carrying chrome revolvers, approached and told the men that they would rob them. The assailants searched the victims' pockets; Perdue had only a cell phone, a business card holder, and a hair brush. Lewis told Perdue he would shoot him "anyway," and as Perdue tried to run, Lewis shot him in the chest. Williams tried to flee, but was also shot by Lewis. On October 10, 2001, Shanta Roman and Jabouri Denson were walking along a street when Lewis and Michael Noble approached them. Both men brandished pistols. Denson and Roman ran until they came to a building and a
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fence; they threw money to the ground, the assailants picked up the money, and Lewis fired at the two victims, saying he did so in retaliation for them making him run after them. Noble was captured shortly thereafter by police officers. Police officers recovered Chandler's abandoned Jeep Cherokee; Lewis's fingerprints were found inside. Officers also executed a search warrant at Lewis's residence and recovered clothing consistent with victims' accounts of the perpetrator's clothing. Police also recovered two firearms: a .357 caliber chrome revolver and a .22 caliber chrome revolver. Ballistics tests revealed that the .357 revolver fired bullets that were recovered from the body of Dinkins, the scene of Webb's killing, and the scene of the attempted shooting of Denson and Roman. 1. During jury voir dire, a prospective juror testified that he believed that he and the prosecuting attorney were second cousins. Lewis contends that the prospective juror was thus disqualified from service and should have been struck for cause. See OCGA
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