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Rowe v. State6/9/2003
Clayton Rowe appeals his conviction for malice murder in connection with the fatal shooting of his wife, Bobbie Lynn Rowe. He challenges the admission of certain testimony and other evidence, the restriction of cross-examination, and the refusal to allow him to call an alleged newly discovered exculpatory witness. Finding the challenges to be without merit, we affirm.
The evidence construed in favor of the verdicts showed that in the early morning hours of November 20, 2001, Clayton Rowe ("Rowe") telephoned 911 and stated that he had shot his wife, Bobbie Lynn Rowe. Corporal Sanders of the Garden City Police Department responded to the reported shooting at the Rowe home; he found Mrs. Rowe in the "t.v. room" with a bullet wound to the right side of her head, unconscious, and gasping for air. Sanders saw two handguns, a magazine, and a holster on a nearby coffee table. Empty champagne bottles were found. The home was neat and tidy except for the gun cabinet which was in disarray; the cabinet appeared to have been "yanked open." Rowe was visibly upset, and there was blood on his forehead, wrist, and hands. Mrs. Rowe was transported by emergency personnel to a hospital, where she died on November 25, 2001. She had sustained a "near contact" wound to the head, meaning that the weapon was approximately one centimeter away from her when the wound was inflicted.
Rowe was arrested at the scene and taken to the police station, where he gave a videotaped interview to Detectives Gunno and Stratman; Rowe stated that he and his wife had been drinking champagne, that the handguns were out of the cabinet because he was showing them to his wife, that they "both went for" the Rossi .38 caliber special revolver, and that it fired accidentally.
The .38 caliber revolver was seized at the scene and turned over to the state crime lab for analysis. A firearms examiner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation tested the handgun and determined that it could fire, and that the hammer safety was working as designed. He concluded that the pistol could not go off accidently, and pulling the trigger was the only way to fire it. It took approximately five pounds of pressure to pull the trigger in the single action, and 13 ½ pounds of pressure to pull the trigger in the double action.
The examiner also tested the clothing worn by Rowe on the night of the shooting, and found no gunpowder; however, the examiner explained that one would not expect to find gunpowder on the shooter's clothing because when a weapon discharges the gunpowder travels in a forward direction with the bullet.
Officer Chris Findley, supervisor of the Crime Scene Unit of the Garden City Police Department, testified concerning the reconstruction of the crime scene. The angle and trajectory of the bullet showed that when the shot was fired, Mrs. Rowe was looking at the television; she was not looking at the table retrieving the handgun, as claimed by her husband. Findley also saw blood and human hair on the weapon, and from his attendance at Mrs. Rowe's autopsy, he observed that she had no type of injury to her hands; there was no cylinder or muzzle blast. If Mrs. Rowe had been holding the handgun by the barrel when it was fired as her husband claimed, she would have had cylinder or muzzle blast on her hands.
Mrs. Rowe's sister, Melanie Bryant, testified that she had a "very close" relationship with Mrs. Rowe, that the two talked with each other on nearly a daily basis, sometimes twice a day. Bryant was aware that her sister and Rowe had problems with alcohol. On one occasion, Mrs. Rowe moved in with Bryant after the Rowes had "an ordeal" that involved alcohol. Bryant "never really cared for the way"
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