Blackmon v. State

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

No. S26A0884

Jimmy Brian Blackmon

v.

The State

On Appeal from the Superior Court of Polk County

No. 2020CR1619MHM

Decided: September 9, 2026

ELLINGTON, Justice.

Jimmy Brian Blackmon appeals his convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of his wife, Ginger “Leanne” Blackmon. 1 Blackmon contends that

1 The crimes occurred on October 18, 2020. On December 10, 2020, a Polk County grand jury indicted Blackmon for malice murder, two counts of felony murder, and one count each of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and cruelty to children in the third degree. Before trial, the State nolle prossed one felony murder count and the count charging possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. After a jury trial that ended on June 20, 2024, Blackmon was found guilty on all remaining counts. On August 27, 2024, Blackmon was sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder, a consecutive five-year term for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and a concurrent 12-month term for cruelty to children in the third degree. The remaining felony murder count was vacated by operation of law, and the aggravated assault count was merged into the malice murder conviction for sentencing purposes. Blackmon filed a timely motion for new trial, which he amended through new counsel on April 4, 2025.

his trial counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance in two respects: by failing to object to a detective’s testimony that Blackmon’s “emotional outbursts” during his custodial interview were not “genuine,” and by failing to investigate and pursue a defense on the ground that his wife Leanne had been poisoning him. 2 For the reasons explained below, we affirm.

1. The evidence presented at trial showed that Blackmon believed Leanne was romantically involved with her ex-boyfriend and that Blackmon heard her say she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with Blackmon. The evidence also showed that Blackmon then shot and killed Leanne while a child was present to hear the shooting, that he made several confessions, and that he fled and eluded capture for several days.

On October 17, 2020, the day before the shooting, while Blackmon was working at a weekend drag-racing event, he used

The trial court denied Blackmon’s amended motion for new trial on October 28, 2025. Blackmon filed a timely notice of appeal, and the case was docketed to the April 2026 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

2 The same attorneys who represented Blackmon during the proceedings on his motion for new trial have continued to represent him on appeal. However, Blackmon has submitted a pro se motion, along with supporting affidavits, asking this Court to remand the case for an evidentiary hearing on the alleged ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel, as well as additional claims that were not raised in the trial court. We exercise our discretion to not recognize these filings under the circumstances of this case. See Johnson v. State, 315 Ga. 876, 890–91 (2023) (holding that courts may “exercise discretion to recognize pro se filings by counseled defendants sparingly” and “in the furtherance of justice,” especially in the circumstance where “recognizing a pro se filing would preserve a right of appeal that would otherwise be lost through no fault of the defendant” (quotation marks omitted)). We note that Blackmon may attempt, if he wishes, to pursue claims of ineffective assistance of post-conviction counsel through a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. See Scott v. State, 322 Ga. 395, 399 n.2 (2025); Moore v. State, 311 Ga. 506, 513–14 (2021).

a FaceTime video call to contact Leanne and, while on the call, saw her ex-boyfriend, Joey Addison, in the background at the Blackmon residence. Jonathan Mallory, a United States Marshal and Blackmon’s acquaintance, witnessed the call and testified that Blackmon was “pretty upset” and “felt disrespected” after the call. Blackmon told Mallory that “if [Addison’s] there when I get there I’m going to kill him.” Blackmon drove home that night, and Mallory called Polk County’s non-emergency 911 line to report Blackmon’s behavior and request an officer to calm Blackmon down. In a phone call the next day, Blackmon told Mallory that “things were going okay” and that he was going to get fast food for himself, Leanne, and Addison. When Blackmon returned home with the food, Leanne, Addison, six-year-old B.V. (a child of whom Leanne and Addison shared guardianship), and Brianna Thacker (who was cleaning the home) were present. Later, Addison left, Blackmon and Leanne went to the bedroom, Thacker went outside, and B.V. remained in the living room.

Blackmon called the couple’s pastor, James Blankenship, and handed the telephone to Leanne, who told Blankenship that she no longer wished to be in a relationship with Blackmon. Leanne then said that Blackmon was looking for a gun, adding that Blackmon always threatened to kill himself “when we get into it like this.” Blankenship, Thacker, and B.V. then heard multiple gunshots. Over the telephone, Blankenship heard Blackmon say, “Is that how you wanted it? It’s done now”; heard B.V. ask, “You shot her? You shot her?”; and heard Blackmon respond, “Yeah, I shot her and she’s dead.” Blankenship questioned Blackmon, who responded, “Yeah, Preacher, I shot her. She’s dead and I’m going to prison.”

Blackmon walked outside holding his gun and said to Thacker, “I just killed that b**ch. Did Joey leave?” Thacker ran to her car and called 911 while driving away from the house. Blackmon called Mallory from the driveway and said that he had shot Leanne “five or six times” because she had told the preacher she was going to leave him, which had upset him. Blackmon then fled. B.V., still inside the house, approached Leanne’s body and spoke to her, but Leanne did not respond. Police arrived on the scene, but Blackmon eluded capture for several days, telling Mallory at one point that he was hiding in Paulding Forest. Blackmon was arrested on October 26, 2020, in possession of the handgun that fired the fatal shots.

Blackmon was advised of his rights and interviewed the next day by Sergeant Jordan Rayburn 3 of the Polk County Police Department. On cross-examination of Sergeant Rayburn, trial counsel elicited testimony that Blackmon became “emotional” several times during the interview, and Sergeant Rayburn added that the emotion was “very isolated and short-lived.” On redirect, the prosecutor asked whether those brief “emotional breakdowns or emotional outbursts” were “genuine,” and Sergeant Rayburn answered, “Yeah, I didn’t believe that they were genuine.” The jury listened to the audio recording of that custodial interview. The trial court instructed the jury, among other things, on voluntary manslaughter.

2. We turn now to Blackmon’s sole contention on appeal: that his trial counsel rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance in two ways. To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show that his counsel’s performance was deficient and that the deficient performance

3 As the Attorney General explains and the transcript of the hearing on Blackmon’s motion for new trial clarifies, Sergeant Rayburn’s surname was incorrectly transcribed as “Raven” throughout the trial transcript.

prejudiced him. Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 687 (1984). To satisfy the deficiency prong of the Strickland test, a defendant must demonstrate that trial counsel “performed at trial in an objectively unreasonable way considering all the circumstances and in the light of prevailing professional norms.” Butler v. State, 313 Ga. 675, 683 (2022) (quotation marks omitted). To prove prejudice under Strickland, a defendant must demonstrate “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s deficiency, the result of the trial would have been different.” Burke v. State, 320 Ga. 706, 708 (2025) (quotation marks omitted). And, if a defendant fails to make a sufficient showing on one prong of the Strickland test, we need not address the other prong. Starks v. State, 320 Ga. 300, 304 (2024).

(a) Blackmon first complains that his trial attorneys undercut the defense theory of pursuing a verdict of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder when they failed to object to Sergeant Rayburn’s testimony that Blackmon’s “emotional outbursts” were not “genuine.” Blackmon argues that the defense theory depended on whether the jury believed Blackmon was in an emotional state consistent with a crime of passion, but that Blackmon did not testify and his custodial interview was the jury’s only way to hear from him. Blackmon has failed to show that his trial counsel’s failure to object to Sergeant Rayburn’s testimony amounted to deficient performance.

“A competent attorney need not make every objection that would be sustained, so a defendant alleging ineffective assistance must show that not objecting to certain testimony was a ‘patently unreasonable’ strategy.” Momon v. State, 322 Ga. 848, 851 (2025) (citations omitted). Blackmon does not explain exactly on what basis he contends that his attorney should have objected to the testimony. The attorney who cross-examined Sergeant Rayburn on behalf of Blackmon elicited detailed testimony about five instances in which Blackmon became emotional, as well as additional testimony that Sergeant Rayburn did not dispute that Blackmon became emotional during the interview. Blackmon’s trial attorney testified at the hearing on the motion for new trial that one reason he declined to object to the State’s later question about Blackmon’s emotional outbursts was that he himself had elicited testimony about Blackmon’s emotional state in an attempt to establish the slight evidence needed to get a jury charge on voluntary manslaughter. Moreover, a reasonable attorney might have concluded that the jury would draw its own conclusions from the audio recording of the interview and that objecting to the testimony about Blackmon’s emotional outbursts not being genuine “could signal to the jury that the defense was worried about such testimony, thereby emphasizing the testimony and magnifying any harmful implications of it.” Jones v. State, 292 Ga. 593, 602 (2013).

Accordingly, Blackmon has failed to show that it was patently unreasonable for his trial counsel not to object to Sergeant Rayburn’s testimony that Blackmon’s emotional outbursts were not genuine, especially when the viable grounds for such an objection are unclear and other evidence admitted at trial showed that Blackmon was emotional at times during the interview. See Richardson v. State, 318 Ga. 690, 696–97 (2024) (holding that we could not say that no reasonable lawyer would have failed to object to testimony that was not a clear instance of improper bolstering); Whittaker v. State, 317 Ga. 127, 135–36 (2023) (holding that trial counsel had a reasonable strategic basis for not seeking to suppress the defendant’s statement that the victim stabbed him and he “came unglued” because counsel testified that he believed the statement supported the voluntary manslaughter defense, which he believed was the “only shot we had”). (b) Blackmon also argues that, because the voluntary manslaughter theory was weak and inconsistent with the evidence, his trial counsel should have investigated and developed a defense that might have been available through other witnesses — potentially including self-defense — based on Blackmon’s claim that Leanne had been poisoning him. To make the required affirmative showing of the prejudicial effect of trial counsel’s failure to call a witness, “[e]ither the uncalled witness must testify or the defendant must introduce a legally recognized substitute for the uncalled witness’s testimony.” Allen v. State, 317 Ga. 1, 11 (2023) (quotation marks omitted). And “[t]o show prejudice on a claim that trial counsel failed to adequately investigate the case, [a defendant must] at least make a proffer as to what additional investigation would have uncovered, and not merely speculate that such information exists and would have made a difference.” Lupoe v. State, 300 Ga. 233, 241 (2016) (quotation marks omitted). In this case, although Blackmon provided his trial counsel with the names and numbers of potential witnesses, Blackmon has failed to show prejudice because, at the motion for new trial hearing, he failed to present any evidence as to what further investigation would have revealed or what any uncalled witnesses would have testified. See id.; Allen, 317 Ga. at 11. As a result, this ineffectiveness claim also fails.

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.