ATLANTA - The Supreme Court of Georgia (SCOGA) has unanimously upheld the murder conviction and life prison sentence given to Brenda O’Connell, who was 15 years old when she and her sister, Catherine O’Connell, were charged with killing their adoptive mother.
Justice Carol Hunstein, writing for the court, said the evidence “was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find...the appellate guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes of which she was convicted.” On Jan. 21, 2014, the justices also upheld the murder conviction and life prison sentence given to Catherine O'Connell for her part in the crime.
The two girls had been adopted by Muriel O’Connell from the same Guatemalan orphanage. But their relationship with their mother gradually deteriorated. According to briefs filed in the case, there were confrontations over cell phone bills and boyfriends, and Ms. O'Connell told friends she feared for her life. State prosecutors said she believed the girls were trying to poison her by putting diethyl ether, a compound found in car starter fluid, in her vodka bottle.
Ms. O'Connell was killed the night of Aug. 6, 2006, at her Buford home. An autopsy revealed she had sustained multiple head injuries while still alive, and had died from strangulation. A medical examiner who had evaluated both girls testified he found no injuries substantiating their claims of self-defense.
In October 2008, the girls were tried as adults, a jury convicted them of murder and aggravated assault, and they were sentenced to life in prison.
In its unanimous six-page opinion, which involves Brenda’s appeal to the state Supreme Court, the high court rejected the first two arguments raised by Brenda’s attorney, which are identical to those raised by Catherine’s attorney in her appeal: that during jury selection, the State racially discriminated by striking a prospective juror, and that the trial court erred by refusing to allow in evidence of her traumatic upbringing in Guatemala.
“For the same reasons that we concluded that Catherine’s enumerations of error were without merit, we conclude that these two enumerations of appellant are without merit,” the opinion says.
In her appeal, Brenda’s attorney additionally argued that the trial court erred in refusing to instruct jurors that they could consider whether she was guilty of involuntary manslaughter as opposed to the more serious charge of murder.
“The trial court declined to give the charge, and appellant now contends that Catherine’s testimony that she strangled her mother in an attempt to pull her off appellant, without any intent to kill her, was evidence of the misdemeanors of reckless conduct and simple battery, requiring the trial court to give the requested charge on unlawful act involuntary manslaughter,” the high court's opinion says. “We conclude, however, that even if the trial court erred in failing to charge on felony involuntary manslaughter, with battery and reckless conduct as the underlying misdemeanors, the error was harmless, because there was overwhelming evidence that was inconsistent with the co-defendants’ version of events that they caused their mother’s death unintentionally.” Rather the evidence “supports the State’s case that the co-defendants acted with malice in killing their mother,” the opinion says.
