State v. Green
State v. Green
Opinion
Opinion
321 Ga. 204 FINAL COPY S24G0816. THE STATE v. GREEN.
LAGRUA, Justice.
Appellee Billy Ray Green was convicted of attempt to entice a child for indecent purposes and other crimes arising from his March 12, 2021 interaction with a 15-year-old female, A. H.1 The Court of Appeals reversed this conviction as unsupported by sufficient evidence pursuant to Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (III) (B) (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979), and its progeny. See Green v. State, 371 Ga. App. 259, 262-264 (2) (899 SE2d 493) (2024). The
State sought certiorari, arguing that the Court of Appeals misapplied sufficiency standards with respect to this conviction by treating certain evidence (referred to herein as the “CVS evidence”) as not relevant to the issue of Green’s intent. We granted review to consider whether evidence that a defendant made unwanted, sexually suggestive comments to an adult is evidence relevant to whether the defendant’s later solicitation, enticement, or taking of a minor was done “for the purpose of child molestation or indecent acts.” OCGA § 16-6-5 (a). In this case, we answer our certiorari question affirmatively and agree with the State that the CVS evidence is relevant to Green’s intent to entice A. H. Thus, we conclude that it was error for the Court of Appeals to hold otherwise, and that, when properly considered in the context of a sufficiency challenge, the CVS evidence is sufficient on the issue of Green’s intent to uphold the attempted enticement conviction. Therefore, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals in part and affirm Green’s conviction.
1. Background (a) The evidence presented at trial showed the following.
Around 5:30 p.m. on March 12, 2021, A. H. was walking her dog in her neighborhood when a car driven by Green pulled up beside her.
Green told A. H. that her father, Jamie — whom Green referred to by name — had called and asked for Green to bring A. H. to him. A.
H. testified that she did not know or recognize Green, and Jamie testified to the same. Green then opened the passenger side door of his car, reached his arm out toward A. H., and gestured for her to get in. A. H. testified that Green became mad when she declined his request, but that Green did not threaten her, touch her, or say anything to her that was sexual in nature. About this same time, one of A. H.’s neighbors pulled into the neighborhood, and Green “sped off.” A. H. called her father, and then 911. During the 911 call, which was played at Green’s trial, A. H. told the operator that “a guy just tried to kidnap [her],” and she described the perpetrator as a white male in his 50s or 60s with long hair driving a small red car.
Officers with the Barrow County Sheriff’s Office (“BCSO”), including Sgt. William Meeler, responded to A. H.’s location within minutes.2 BCSO Sgt. Garrett Guest also responded to the 911 call and was a few minutes from A. H.’s location when he spotted a car in a nearby CVS parking lot that matched the description given by A. H. Sgt. Guest pulled into the CVS parking lot and made contact with the driver, who identified himself as Green.3 In their conversation, Green repeatedly said he had been at the CVS “all day,” but also gave Sgt. Guest conflicting versions of his activities that day. A few minutes later, Sgt. Guest entered the CVS to obtain security camera footage and learned from an employee that Green had tried to “lure” female CVS employees into his car earlier that day. When Sgt. Guest walked back outside, he asked Green whether he had talked to any CVS employees that day, and Green affirmed he had asked two “young girls” if they wanted to “hang out.” BCSO officers decided to conduct a showup, and Sgt. Meeler drove A. H. to
Green insisted that he did not want them to call their manager or
911, and when they went to do so, Green “bolted” out the door to his car. One of the employees recalled the other suggesting: “I don’t think that man was hurt . . . I think he was just trying to get us out there.”
The 27-year-old employee testified that she left for lunch shortly after this incident and asked her manager to watch her leave because she was “90 percent sure [Green] was still out there.” When she returned around 45 minutes later, Green’s car was still in the CVS parking lot but had been moved into the spot where the employee’s car had previously been. While this employee “thought that was very strange,” she did not interact with Green again, but still asked her manager to watch her leave at the end of her shift that day.
The 39-year-old employee testified to additional interactions with Green on March 12. She testified that, when she walked outside for a smoke break in the afternoon, Green asked her “are you ready for a good time?” Not wanting to “egg him on,” she ignored Green, continued to her car, took her smoke break, and went back inside the CVS without incident. Then, at the end of her shift, around 5:00 or 5:30 p.m., the employee walked outside to discover Green’s car parked next to hers. She told the jury that, “based on the little comment [Green] made already, it scared the hell out of me,” so she got her manager and asked him to watch her leave. As she reached her car, Green told her that he could “show [her] a few tricks” or “show [her] a few things.” The employee interpreted Green’s comments as an attempt “to coax [her] to get in [Green’s car] and go do things with him.”
At the close of the State’s case, Green moved for a directed verdict on the attempted enticement charge. The transcript reflects the following: COUNSEL: . . . I’ll make a motion for directed verdict on Count Three. Specifically, the victim in the case said that there was — in any contact between her and Mr. Green, that there was no mention of any kind of sexual advance.
And based on her statement, I believe that — that as a matter of law, that Count Three has to be — a directed verdict would be appropriate as to Count Three. ...
COURT: All right. State’s response, please?
STATE: Yes, Your Honor. Looking at Count Three, it charges Mr. Green with criminal attempt to entice a child for indecent purposes. It talks about the substantial steps that he took to do that. And whether those constituted substantial steps, that would be a question for the jury, but certainly there’s some evidence that he took steps to do that.
In terms of what his intent was, obviously that’s something the State has to prove to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s alleged that he did this with the purpose of committing indecent acts. And [defense counsel] is correct, there was no testimony about any kind of explicit sexual advance towards the victim from Mr. Green, no sexual comment, but the State would argue that there is sufficient circumstantial evidence on his intent based on how he was acting that day towards others. And that gets into the — the intrinsic evidence with other witnesses from CVS. And what constitutes an indecent act, that’s also a question for the jury, but the State would argue there is sufficient evidence to get past the directed verdict.
COURT: You get the final word on that motion with respect to that count. Anything else you want to say? ...
COUNSEL: Yeah, and the child themself said that there was no indication of any sexual advance, and I think that’s clear, that based on that as to that count, there’s no substantial step toward doing something that she said didn’t occur. So we feel like, as a matter of law, that we should have a directed verdict as to Count Three.
COURT: . . . The Court is inclined to deny the motion and finds that there may be some — some evidence, albeit circumstantial, that could put a jury in a position to conclude that — that the Defendant committed this act.
So I’m just going to — I’m going to deny your motion with respect to that count.
Green then testified in his own defense and gave the jury his version of events from March 12. He did not deny interacting with A. H., but characterized their encounter in much different terms.
Green testified that he was on his way to the CVS from his home7 when he saw who he thought was a 40-year-old female friend of his named Dana Hayne walking in front of the house where a different friend, George Baker, used to live, so he turned down the road to talk to her. Though it was not his friend Dana, Green testified that he pulled over anyway to “ask[ ] her did she know George Baker,” and when A. H. said she did not, Green “said thank you and drove off.” Green denied opening the door to his car or gesturing for A. H. to get in, testified that he did not know A. H.’s father and denied using his name, said the softball bats were for his “little great grandson,” and opined that the stuffed unicorn was not his, but might belong to his niece who would occasionally use his car. At various points, Green told the jury that harming A. H. “[n]ever
H. crossed [his] mind” and that “[he] had no intentions of nothing” in speaking with her, adding that he “would never hurt a child” and had “never harmed a kid.”
Green also told the jury that, on March 12, like most days, he spent a large portion of his time in the CVS parking lot “[j]ust sit[ting] there and play[ing] [his] radio” because it was “something to do.” Asked about the day in question, Green repeatedly testified that he did not recall speaking with any CVS employees and denied entering the CVS. But after being impeached with Sgt. Guest’s bodycam footage, Green admitted he “might have talked to the two [CVS employees] at the store.” When confronted about his changing story, Green admitted that he lied to Sgt. Guest but said he did so because he consumed “half a pint” of vodka on the morning of March 12, had recently received a DUI, and “didn’t want to go to jail.”
After Green’s testimony concluded, he renewed his motion for directed verdict on the attempted enticement charge. The trial court denied the renewed motion without elaboration, stating only that it “decline[d] to alter its [previous] ruling,” but noted renewal of the motion for the record. At the end of trial, the jury returned guilty verdicts on each of the four counts charged. Green was sentenced immediately thereafter.
(b) Green appealed his convictions to the Court of Appeals, where he argued in relevant part that the trial court erred in denying his motion for directed verdict on the attempted enticement charge, asserting that insufficient evidence was presented at trial to sustain it. See Green, 371 Ga. App. at 262-264 (2). The Court of Appeals agreed and reversed this conviction in Division 2 of its opinion. Id. The Court of Appeals’ discussion on this enumeration of error began with a recitation of OCGA § 16-6-5 (a)’s statutory language and citation to its precedent for the proposition that a conviction for enticement “‘must [ ] be based upon some evidence that an act of indecency or child molestation was the intended motivation for the enticement.’” Green, 371 Ga. App. at 263 (2) (quoting Lasseter v. State, 197 Ga. App. 498, 499-500 (1) (399 SE2d 85) (1990) (emphasis omitted)). The Court of Appeals then reasoned that, while the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to prove “that Green attempted to entice the minor victim into his vehicle,” that same evidence was not sufficient to establish “that an act of indecency or child molestation was the intended motivation for Green’s attempted enticement of the minor victim.” Green, 371 Ga. App. at 263-264 (2) (cleaned up). With respect to Green’s “intended motivation,” the Court of Appeals held that the evidence was not just insufficient, but “lacking” altogether, as was the case in Phillips v. State, 354 Ga. App. 88, 92 (1) (840 SE2d 165) (2020).8 Id. To support that conclusion, the Court of Appeals observed that A. H. “denied that Green said anything about wanting to take her somewhere else to ‘try to have relations with [her]’ or anything similar[,]” and
In sum, despite the CVS evidence having been admitted at trial as evidence intrinsic to the charged crimes, see Green, 371 Ga. App. at 264-266 (4), the Court of Appeals concluded that the CVS evidence was categorically “not evidence” of the type needed to sustain an
attempted enticement conviction. Id. at 262-264 (2).9 Thus, absent any relevant evidence to establish the intent component for an attempted enticement, the Court of Appeals analogized the present case to Phillips, where “the State failed to present any evidence” to establish the defendant’s intent, such that the evidence presented at trial was necessarily insufficient. Id. (citing Phillips, 354 Ga. App. at 92 (1)). Applying that same logic here, the Court of Appeals reversed Green’s conviction as unsupported by sufficient evidence.
2. Analysis (a) The enticement statute provides that “[a] person commits the offense of enticing a child for indecent purposes when he or she solicits, entices, or takes any child under the age of 16 years to any place whatsoever for the purpose of child molestation or indecent acts.” OCGA § 16-6-5 (a). Enticement, like all other crimes, requires
To obtain a conviction under OCGA § 16-6-5 (a), the State must establish that the defendant acted with the requisite intent — that is, the State must offer evidence from which a rational trier of fact could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant
enticed10 a minor victim “for the purpose of child molestation or indecent acts.”11 That a defendant possessed such an intent must be proven whether the crime is charged as a completed offense or as an attempted offense. See OCGA § 16-4-1 (“A person commits the offense of criminal attempt when, with intent to commit a specific crime, he performs any act which constitutes a substantial step toward the commission of that crime.”).
In the decision below, the Court of Appeals discounted the CVS evidence on a categorical basis as not relevant to Green’s intent because the comments comprising the CVS evidence were directed at adults, rather than children. See Green, 371 Ga. App. at 263 (2).
Evidence is relevant if it has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the
Jones v. State, 301 Ga. 544, 546 (1) (802 SE2d 234) (2017) (citation and punctuation omitted). Moreover, relevance under Rule 401 is distinct from probative value. See Olds v. State, 299 Ga. 65, 75 (2) (786 SE2d 633) (2016) (“Evidence is relevant if it has ‘any tendency’ to prove or disprove a fact, whereas the probative value of evidence derives in large part from the extent to which the evidence tends to make the existence of a fact more or less probable.”) (emphasis in original).
Here, Green’s intent was a fact of consequence to the determination of the attempted enticement charge because he pleaded not guilty to that charge. See Olds, 299 Ga. at 72 (2) (“[I]ntent was put in issue by the defendant entering a plea of not guilty. That such a plea puts the State to its burden of proving each and every element of the crimes charged is beyond dispute.”).
Accordingly, if the CVS evidence has any tendency to make it more or less probable that Green acted with the requisite intent — that is, more or less probable that Green’s act of enticing A. H. was for the purpose of committing child molestation or an indecent act — then the evidence is relevant.
We conclude that the CVS evidence is relevant to Green’s intent in this case, as it has some tendency to make it more probable that Green’s enticement of A. H. was done for the purpose of committing child molestation or an indecent act. In Olds, we explained that evidence that an accused committed an intentional act generally is relevant to show — the evidence, in other words, has some tendency to make more or less probable — that the same defendant committed a similar act with the same sort of intent, especially when the acts were committed close in time and in similar circumstances.
Olds, 299 Ga. at 72 (2) (emphasis in original). Such is the case here.
The record establishes that, in the span of approximately six hours, Green interacted with three members of the opposite sex: 15- year-old A. H. and the two CVS employees. Green attempted to get each of these women into his car under false pretenses and through the use of deception — first, by feigning injury at the CVS and later, by telling A. H. that her father, whom Green referred to by name, had requested Green pick her up. Less than an hour before Green encountered A. H., he made unwanted, sexually suggestive comments to one of those CVS employees, telling her that he could “show [her] a few tricks” or “show [her] a few things,” which that employee interpreted as an attempt by Green “to coax [her] to get in [Green’s car] and go do things with him” that were sexual in nature.12 Because Green’s interactions with the CVS employees, and in particular, his interaction with the employee that he offered to “show a few tricks,” were “committed close in time and in similar circumstances” to his interaction with A. H., that evidence has some tendency to make it more probable that Green acted with a similar, sexually-related intent with respect to his attempted enticement of A. H. Olds, 299 Ga. at 72 (2). As such, the CVS evidence is relevant to Green’s intent for the attempted enticement conviction.
(b) Having concluded that the CVS evidence is relevant to
Green’s intent and that the Court of Appeals erred by categorically disregarding it, we turn to whether the evidence presented at trial on the issue of Green’s intent was sufficient. We conclude that it was.
In a sufficiency review, “we view the evidence presented at trial in the light most favorable to the verdicts and consider whether it was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which he was convicted.” Wilkerson v. State, 317 Ga. 242, 245 (1) (892 SE2d 737) (2023). In so doing, we “leave[ ] to the jury the resolution of conflicts in the evidence, the weight of the evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and reasonable inferences to be made from basic facts to ultimate facts.” Id. (citation and punctuation omitted). Among those matters left for a jury’s consideration is whether a defendant acted with the requisite intent to commit the crimes charged. See Poole v. State, 312 Ga. 515, 518-519 (863 SE2d 93) (2021) (“[C]riminal intent is a question for the jury, and it may be inferred from that person’s conduct before, during, and after the commission of the crime.”) (citation and punctuation omitted); OCGA § 16-2-6 (“A person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the trier of facts may find such intention upon consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive, and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused in prosecuted.”). See also Bryan v. State, 371 Ga. App. 769, 776 (1) (b) (903 SE2d 160) (2024) (“Intent, which is a mental attitude, is commonly detectible only inferentially, and the law accommodates this.”) (citation and punctuation omitted); OCGA § 24-14-9 (“In arriving at a verdict, the jury, from the facts proved, and sometimes from the absence of counter evidence, may infer the existence of other facts reasonably and logically consequent on those proved.”).
While Green testified that “[he] had no intentions of nothing,” when interacting with A. H., a jury is permitted to draw reasonable inferences, including on the issue of intent, from his denial and other evidence presented at trial. Here, we think the jury could reasonably infer Green’s intent with respect to his enticement of A. H. from the relevant and intrinsic CVS evidence, as that evidence demonstrated that Green’s prior actions, “which took place on the same day, and in one instance, shortly before the incident with the victim[,]” Green, Ga. App. at 265 (4), were motivated by a purpose that was sexual in nature. The fact that Green’s sexually-related overtures toward the employee that he offered to “show a few tricks” were frustrated by the employee’s rejection of his efforts also increases the probative value of that evidence with respect to Green’s intent when he encountered A. H. less than an hour after being rejected.
Additionally, “jurors [are] authorized to consider their disbelief in [a defendant’s] testimony — and the inconsistencies between it and the eyewitness accounts of others — as substantive evidence of his guilt” where “some corroborative evidence exists for the charged offense[.]” Maynor v. State, 317 Ga. 492, 498 (2) (a) (893 SE2d 724) (2023) (citation and punctuation omitted); Daughtie v. State, 297 Ga. 261, 263-264 (2) (773 SE2d 263) (2015). Green himself offered corroborative evidence for the attempted enticement conviction by admitting that he approached A. H. on March 12. Moreover, Green’s testimony was inconsistent with the testimony of both A. H. and the CVS employees in several material respects. For example, Green denied opening the door to his car, gesturing for A. H. to get in, or using the name of A. H.’s father, despite A. H. testifying to those facts, and he denied entering the CVS on March 12, but the CVS employees testified that he did so twice. When confronted about those inconsistencies on cross-examination, Green told the jury that he “d[id]n’t have a clue” why his story was different from theirs. In the face of these inconsistencies, the jury was authorized to reject Green’s version of events and treat his inconsistent testimony as substantive evidence of his guilt. See Maynor, 317 Ga. at 497-498 (2) (a) (concluding that jury was authorized to reject defendant’s testimony that he acted in self-defense where the only evidence offered in support of that defense was the defendant’s self-serving statements).13 3. Conclusion Based on the foregoing, we hold that the CVS evidence
Judgment reversed in part. All the Justices concur.
Decided March 4, 2025.
Certiorari to the Court of Appeals of Georgia — 371 Ga. App. 259.
J. Bradley Smith, District Attorney, Andrew M. Brill, Assistant District Attorney, for appellant.
Donna A. Seagraves, Kathleen J. Anderson, Kali A. Haney, for appellee.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.