Mims v. State ( 2021 )

In the Supreme Court of Georgia
Decided: February 15, 2021
S21A0244. MIMS v. THE STATE.
PETERSON, Justice.
Nathan Mims appeals his convictions for murder and
possession of a knife during the commission of a crime for stabbing
his ex-girlfriend, Naty Ortiz-Ramos, to death.1 His sole enumeration
of error is that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to
sustain his convictions because the evidence showed that he could
1 Mims killed Ortiz-Ramos in April 2014. On July 15, 2014, a Richmond
County grand jury returned an indictment charging Mims with malice murder,
felony murder, and possession of a knife during the commission of a crime.
After a March 2016 trial, a jury found Mims guilty of all three counts. The trial
court on March 18, 2016, sentenced Mims to life in prison without the
possibility of parole for malice murder, plus a five-year concurrent sentence for
the weapon charge; the felony murder count was vacated by operation of law.
Mims filed a motion for new trial on April 19, 2016, and an amended motion
on August 21, 2017. Following a hearing, the trial court denied the motion in
an order entered on March 6, 2019. Mims filed a timely notice of appeal on
March 12, 2019, appellate counsel filed an amended notice of appeal on May
22, 2020, and the case was docketed to this Court’s term beginning in
December 2020 and submitted for decision on the briefs.
not control himself and thus was not responsible for the killing. But
the jury was not required to believe his explanation of Ortiz-Ramos’s
killing; the evidence was sufficient to convict him, so we affirm.
The evidence taken in the light most favorable to the verdict
showed the following. Mims physically and emotionally abused
Ortiz-Ramos over the course of their relationship, which began in
2011. After Ortiz-Ramos broke up with Mims in March 2014, he
threatened to kill her. On April 27, 2014, Mims visited Ortiz-Ramos
in her Richmond County apartment. After falling asleep that night,
Ortiz-Ramos’s roommate awoke to Ortiz-Ramos’s screams for help.
The roommate found Ortiz-Ramos lying on the floor with Mims
straddled on top of her, punching her in the face. Ortiz-Ramos was
barely conscious, looked like a rag doll, and was moaning. The
roommate retrieved a cell phone, called 911, and when she returned,
saw Mims stabbing Ortiz-Ramos with a knife. Responding law
enforcement officers were unable to resuscitate Ortiz-Ramos. She
had been stabbed 37 times, including one stab that punctured the
front of her heart, and one that punctured her left lung. Mims, who
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was still at Ortiz-Ramos’s apartment when sheriff’s deputies
arrived, admitted stabbing her and acknowledged that he did not
need to stab her to defend himself, that he continued to hit and stab
her even after she was incapacitated, that Ortiz-Ramos’s roommate
and children asked him to stop, and that he could have and should
have left. At trial, Mims testified that on the night Ortiz-Ramos
died, she “went into a rage” and came at him with a knife. He
claimed that he “panicked” and “went into an unconscious state of
fear” and that he did not stab her intentionally but rather out of
“instinct” and “panic” and because he feared for his life.
Mims’s sole enumeration of error is that the evidence was
insufficient to convict him. In support of that claim, he relies on his
testimony that he was not in control of his actions when he beat and
stabbed Ortiz-Ramos to death. He contends that he should not stand
convicted for a crime that he could not stop himself from
committing. 2
2 Mims makes a passing argument that his convictions should be vacated
and the matter remanded “for a new competency evaluation and, if appropriate
3
We evaluate the sufficiency of evidence as a matter of federal
due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution by determining whether a rational trier of fact could
have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. See
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560)
(1979). In conducting that evaluation, “[i]t is not the job of this Court
to weigh the evidence on appeal or resolve conflicts in trial testimony
but rather to examine the evidence in the light most favorable to the
verdict[.]” Browder v. State, 294 Ga. 188, 191 (1) (751 SE2d 354)
(2013) (citation and punctuation omitted).
A rational trier of fact could have rejected Mims’s assertion
that he was not in control of his own actions, as well as any
associated claims that he was acting in self-defense or with an
thereafter, a new trial.” But Mims did not list the competency issue as an
enumeration of error, and he may not make arguments to expand his sole
enumeration of error related to the sufficiency of the evidence. See Wallace v.
State, 303 Ga. 34, 37-38 (2) (810 SE2d 93) (2018) (“[A]n appealing party may
not use its brief to expand its enumeration of errors by arguing the
incorrectness of a trial court ruling not mentioned in the enumeration of
errors.” (citation and punctuation omitted)). Moreover, Mims offers no support
⸺ factual or legal ⸺ for his suggestion that he should receive another
competency evaluation.
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irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation. See Corley v.
State, 308 Ga. 321, 322 (1) (a) (840 SE2d 391) (2020) (“[Q]uestions
about the existence of justification are for a jury to decide[.]”);
Anderson v. State, 248 Ga. 682, 683 (3) (285 SE2d 533) (1982)
(“Whether or not a provocation, if any, is such a serious provocation
as would be sufficient to excite a sudden, violent, and irresistible
passion in a reasonable person, reducing the offense from murder to
manslaughter, is generally a question for the jury.”). 3 And the
defendant’s testimony, in which he claimed he was justified or
provoked into acting, may itself be considered substantive evidence
of guilt when disbelieved by the jury, as long as some corroborative
evidence exists for the charged offense. See Daughtie v. State, 297
Ga. 261, 263-264 (2) (773 SE2d 263) (2015). Mims does not dispute
that he killed Ortiz-Ramos, and the jury was not required to believe
3Neither opening statements nor closing arguments at Mims’s trial were
transcribed. But the jury was instructed on voluntary manslaughter and self-
defense, and the verdict form included options to find Mims guilty of voluntary
manslaughter instead of malice murder or felony murder. Because neither
party has raised the issue, we express no opinion as to whether the voluntary
manslaughter charge was required under the facts of this case.
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his explanation as to his culpability. The evidence was
constitutionally sufficient to support Mims’s convictions. We affirm.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.
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