Byron v. State
Byron v. State
Opinion of the Court
*297Appellant Reno Byron was found guilty of malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Virgil White. He claims that the evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to support the jury's guilty verdicts and that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance. Neither of those claims has merit, so we affirm.
1. (a) Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdicts, the evidence presented at trial showed the following. On the night of July 3, 1999, White was at a club in Tifton with his brother Jason and three other friends. At 1:30 a.m., they attempted to leave the club, but Jason's truck was blocked in by other cars in the parking lot. Appellant, his friend Ricky Jackson, and five others were sitting on the back of a car next to the truck. As Jason attempted to maneuver the truck out, Jackson put his feet on the truck. Jason asked Jackson to take his feet off, but Jackson refused. Jason then got out of his truck, and a fight began between Jason and Jackson.
White and Jason's friends attempted to intervene, and Appellant shot his Tec-9 pistol in the air in an attempt to stop the fighting. Jackson grabbed the Tec-9 from Appellant and began chasing Jason around. Jackson shot at but missed Jason, who ran away and down the street, with Jackson following and continuing to shoot until the gun jammed. White shot his gun in the air to try to stop Jackson from chasing his brother. Appellant then approached White from the back and shot at him with another gun, hitting him five times.
Later investigation showed that White was killed with a .380-caliber gun. Appellant was seen earlier that day carrying both a Tec-9 and a .380-caliber gun.
Appellant did not testify at trial. His defense was that he was not the shooter; the defense suggested that Jackson shot White, although Jackson testified and denied that.
(b) Appellant contends that the evidence summarized above was not legally sufficient to support his convictions. We disagree. On the day of the shooting, a witness saw Appellant carrying the kind of gun that killed the victim, and three other witnesses saw Appellant shoot at the victim, including one who said Appellant shot the victim from *298behind. This testimony was sufficient to authorize a rational jury to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of malice murder and possession of a gun during the commission of a felony. See Jackson v. Virginia,
2. Appellant claims that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance in four ways. To succeed on these claims, Appellant "must prove both that [his] lawyer's performance was professionally deficient and that [he was] prejudiced as a result." Gomez v. State,
Appellant's first claim-that his trial counsel failed to adequately prepare for the testimony of a defense witness who was impeached on cross-examination-was not preserved for appellate review, because Appellant did not raise it with new counsel in his amended motion for new trial. See
Appellant's third claim is that his trial counsel failed "to conduct an investigation into the use of guns" in the case. Appellant says that showing which guns were used and by whom around the time of the fatal shooting was an important part of the trial. We do not disagree, and neither did trial counsel. He called and questioned multiple witnesses about the guns used and who used them. Appellant has not shown what further investigation about the guns " 'would have revealed or how any additional information would have improved [his] position.' " Brown v. State,
Finally, Appellant claims that his trial counsel should have "asserted a defense that involved justification" because there was testimony that White was armed. To prove that counsel performed deficiently in making such a decision about trial strategy, Appellant must show that the decision was "so patently unreasonable that no competent attorney would have chosen [that path]." Gomez,
3. As outlined in footnote 1 above, this is yet another criminal case with an inordinate delay between the trial and the direct appeal reaching this court. See Owens v. State, Case No. S17A1905, --- Ga. ----,
Judgment affirmed.
All the Justices concur.
The victim was killed on July 4, 1999. On September 7, 1999, a Tift County grand jury indicted Appellant for malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Appellant's trial began on March 21, 2000, and the next day the jury found him guilty of all charges except possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, which was nolle prossed. The trial court sentenced Appellant to serve life in prison for malice murder and a consecutive five years for the firearm conviction; it merged the remaining guilty verdicts. (Although the court should have vacated the felony murder count, this mistake of nomenclature had no effect on the sentence imposed, see Drews v. State, Case No. S17A1873, --- Ga. ----,
On April 21, 2000, Appellant filed a motion for new trial, which was amended by his new counsel on March 18, 2014. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied the motion on October 28, 2014. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal directed to the Court of Appeals, but the case was not docketed there until February 17, 2017. The Court of Appeals transferred the case to this Court on March 15, 2017; the case was then docketed in this Court for the August 2017 term and submitted for decision on the briefs.
Three witnesses saw Appellant shoot at White. One of White and Jason's friends testified that Appellant came "from behind Virgil and just started shooting"; another testified that he saw Appellant shoot "two times and that's when Virgil ... fell down"; and Appellant's cousin testified that she saw Appellant "[s]hooting ... [t]owards Virgil."
Appellant also contends that the evidence did not support the guilty verdicts for felony murder and aggravated assault, but that contention is moot because he was not convicted of or sentenced for those crimes. See Threatt v. State,
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