Hampton v. State
Annotate this CaseDefendant was convicted of malice murder, aggravated assault, hindering the apprehension of a criminal, and tampering with the evidence. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court held that the offense of hindering the apprehension of a criminal was the equivalent of the common law crime of being an accessory after the fact and that a party could not be convicted both of being a principal to the crime and an accessory after the fact. Therefore, the court held that defendant correctly contended that he could not be convicted of both malice murder and hindering the apprehension of a criminal, but he incorrectly argued that the remedy was to set aside his conviction for malice murder. The court held that the conviction for hindering must be set aside and therefore, affirmed defendant's conviction for malice murder. The court further held that, because defendant must be given the benefit of the doubt in construing his ambiguous verdict, the court vacated his felony tampering sentence and remanded for misdemeanor sentencing where the verdict form simply contained a finding of guilt on the tampering count, making it impossible to determine if the jury found defendant guilty of misdemeanor or felony tampering. The court finally held that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's recusal claim, did not abuse its discretion in controlling cross-examination, and the court had the authority to enter the sentences regardless of any prior convictions.
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