Brown v. State

Melvin Louis Brown, Jr. was convicted a second time of murder and other crimes after fatally shooting Javious Tucker and wounding Cyntrelis Boggs during an argument that started over a bag of pork skins. His first conviction had been reversed by the Supreme Court of Georgia because of an unrelated evidence problem, but a retried Athens-Clarke County jury convicted him again. On this appeal, Brown argued the trial judge gave a flawed self-defense instruction, wrongly let the victim's mother show and describe in-life photos of her son, and that his trial lawyer should have used the other shooting witness's earlier testimony to challenge his credibility. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected all three arguments, finding the jury instruction was not erroneous because a newer self-defense law did not yet apply, the photo testimony was too limited to have affected the trial's outcome, and Brown failed to prove his lawyer's choices were unreasonable or harmful. The court affirmed the conviction.

The trial court's justification instruction was correct because the 2014 Safe Carry Protection Act did not yet apply to Brown's February 2014 shooting; the limited photo testimony did not amount to plain error; and Brown failed to prove his lawyer's decision not to impeach a witness was deficient or harmful.

The ruling clarifies that Georgia's 2014 Safe Carry Protection Act, which expanded self-defense justification to felons possessing firearms, does not apply to shootings that happened before the law took effect, guiding how similar older cases are instructed to juries.

Affirmed

1. The court first confirmed on its own review, as it does in murder cases, that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, was enough for a rational jury to find Brown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. On the jury instruction claim, the court explained that a prior case (Johnson v. State) required juries to be told that self-defense could justify a felon's possession of a firearm, but that rule stems from a law, the Safe Carry Protection Act of 2014, which did not take effect until July 2014, five months after Brown's February 2014 shooting.
3. Because that law did not yet exist when Brown shot Tucker, the trial court was not required to give the Johnson-style instruction, so there was no error, let alone the kind of clear and obvious error needed for plain error review since Brown never objected at trial.
4. On the photograph and testimony claim, the court applied the plain error test, which requires showing a clear error that likely affected the trial's outcome; because the mother's testimony about the photos was brief and Brown never showed how the specific photos could have swayed the jury, he could not meet that standard.
5. On the ineffective assistance claim, the court applied the two-part test from Strickland v. Washington, which requires showing both an unreasonable lawyering choice and a reasonable probability that it changed the outcome; because Brown never asked his trial lawyer why he skipped impeachment and never presented the earlier testimony he says was inconsistent, he could not prove either deficient performance or resulting harm.

• murder conviction
• self-defense instruction
• Safe Carry Protection Act
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• Athens-Clarke County