Sosebee v. Georgia
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Christopher Sosebee was convicted by jury of felony murder in the 2020 death of Brian Hayes resulting from a car wreck. A sheriff’s deputy was looking for a black car that had been spraypainted and was missing its front grill, in order to serve arrest warrants on a person who, the day before, had reportedly been driving a vehicle matching that description. After a few minutes of following a SUV at 45 to 50 mph in a 45 mph zone, the deputy activated his blue lights and siren. The SUV accelerated and pulled away from the patrol car. At a curve, the SUV’s right rear tire
left the road, then the SUV veered sharply to the left, crossed the oncoming lane, traveled up an embankment, hit some boulders, flipped, landed on top of an approaching truck, and then rolled off. The driver of the truck (Hayes) showed no signs of life when the deputy reached him, and Sosebee’s girlfriend, Tiffany Franklin, who had been a passenger in the SUV during the incident, was very badly injured. A test of Sosebee’s blood after the wreck revealed methamphetamine, at an impairment level, as well as marijuana. Sosebee contended felony murder (Count 1), and homicide by vehicle in the first degree (Count 4), which were both predicated on Count 6, fleeing or attempting to elude, defined exactly the same criminal conduct. Sosebee argued that the rule of lenity therefore required that he be sentenced within the range for homicide by vehicle in the first degree, rather than for felony murder. He also contended his sentence of life without parole violated the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment in the Eighth Amendment because neither felony murder nor homicide by vehicle in the first degree, when predicated on fleeing and attempting to elude as in this case, requires malice or specific intent to harm, and because the prior felonies that triggered his sentencing as a recidivist were nonviolent. Finding no reversible error, the Georgia Supreme Court affirmed.
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