☢ test - Í

Howard v. State, 286 Ga. 222, 686 S.E.2d 764 (November 23, 2009). At defendant’s murder trial, no error where defendant was prohibited from tendering into evidence co-defendant’s MySpace website, showing co-defendant holding a gun, to suggest that co-defendant may have been the gunman. “This Court has held that such weak inferences are inadmissible to show that another person committed the crime in question,” citing Dawson (March 17, 2008), below. Arrington v. State, 286 Ga. 335, 687 S.E.2d 438 (November 9, 2009). At defendant’s capital murder trial, trial court properly excluded alternate perpetrator evidence, to wit: testimony from victim’s sister “that the victim told her that the victim's neighbor, Farrell McMahan, had raped the victim several months prior to the murder. The victim's sister made this statement in her taped interview to police on the day the victim's body was discovered.” “The alleged rape occurred several months prior to Hutchens's murder, and there was no evidence connecting either the rape or McMahan to it. Moreover, assuming the proffered testimony's trustworthiness, the fact that McMahan had raped the victim in the past did not directly connect him to the victim's murder or show that he committed the murder or a similar crime.” Warner v. State, 299 Ga.App. 56, 681 S.E.2d 624 (June 12, 2009). Armed robbery and related convictions affirmed; no abuse of discretion in ruling out cross-examination of police officer about perpetrators of another “armed robbery of a nearby bank that occurred around the same time as the armed robbery at issue. This bank robbery involved two armed men of the same minority race who wore scarves during the robbery. … Although a defendant may introduce evidence tending to show that another person committed the crime for which defendant is being tried, ‘the proffered evidence must raise a reasonable inference of the defendant's innocence, and must directly connect the other person with the corpus delicti, or show that the other person has recently committed a crime of the same or similar nature.’ Klinect v. State, 269 Ga. 570, 573(3) (501 S.E.2d 810) (1998). Evidence that some unidentified person or persons may have committed other similar crimes does not meet these requirements. Hamilton v. State, 274 Ga. 582, 583-584(3) (555 S.E.2d 701) (2001). See Carr v. State, 279 Ga. 271, 272-273(2) (612 S.E.2d 292) (2005) (as no evidence showed the identity of the perpetrator of the similar crimes, court did not abuse its discretion in excluding this evidence). Because Warner proffered no evidence as to the identity of the perpetrators of the bank armed robbery (indeed, nothing even showed it was not Warner), the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the evidence. See Hamilton, supra, 274 Ga. at 584(3).” Hughes v. State, 297 Ga.App. 581, 677 S.E.2d 674 (March 27, 2009). At defendant’s child molestation trial, trial court properly excluded alternate perpetrator evidence as “conjectural for at least two reasons. First, the ‘evidence’ was very thin: the mother simply told police they should investigate this other man also. There was never any evidence that in fact this other man molested the stepdaughter. Second, the stepdaughter consistently identified Hughes and only Hughes as the perpetrator,” citing Bell v. State , 235 Ga.App. 825, 826, 510 S.E.2d 589 (1998) (“the victim herself consistently identified [the defendant] as the only person who molested her” (emphasis in original)). Dawson v. State, 283 Ga. 315, 658 S.E.2d 755 (March 17, 2008). Trial court properly excluded defendant’s speculative “evidence that the murders were actually committed by a drug-dealing gang who planted evidence incriminating [defendant] in retaliation for [defendant] having purportedly ‘snitched’ on one of the gang members who was allegedly dealing drugs in a local jail with the complicity of deputy sheriffs.” “[Defendant’s] theory was speculative and conjectural, did not connect a specific person with the crimes, and did not raise a reasonable inference of [defendant’s] innocence.” Citing Oree (May 17, 2006) and Azizi (February 22, 1999), below. Doyal v. State, 287 Ga.App. 667, 653 S.E.2d 52 (August 7, 2007). Trial court properly excluded defendant’s proffered evidence suggesting an alternative perpetrator – that the drugs found in defendant’s purse at the convenience store where she worked belonged to another employee. “Doyal asserts that the trial court erred by denying her request to admit evidence that the manager of the convenience store had ‘grave suspicions’ that another employee was using illegal drugs. She also asserts that the trial court should have admitted a certified copy of court documents showing that this employee was charged with trafficking in methamphetamine one year before Doyal’s arrest and that these charges were dismissed in March 2006 because the employee had been ‘under sentence for a federal drug conviction’ and was ‘serving her sentence in federal prison.’ We find no merit in this argument. Defense counsel’s proffer during trial included no evidence that this employee was working in the store around the time of Doyal’s arrest, and the certified copy of the nolle prosequi shows that the employee was incarcerated one month before Doyal’s arrest.” Corbin v. State, 287 Ga.App. 194, 651 S.E.2d 101 (July 31, 2007). Trial court properly excluded hearsay evidence that the drugs found in defendant’s purse belonged to defendant’s daughter. Consensual search disclosed meth in defendant’s purse and her adult daughter’s purse. A later search located more meth in the daughter’s bedroom in the home they shared. Both women were charged with possession of meth. “At trial, Corbin’s defense was that the drugs found in her