STEPP-McCOMMONS v. State

Contevious Stepp-McCommons and Malik Rice planned to rob a buyer who responded to a fake Craigslist ad for cell phones. When Jamar Perry and his stepfather Clarence Gardenhire arrived to buy phones, Stepp-McCommons pulled a gun and shot Gardenhire ten times, killing him. A DeKalb County jury convicted Stepp-McCommons of felony murder, aggravated assault, attempted armed robbery, and a firearms offense, though it acquitted him of malice murder. On appeal, Stepp-McCommons argued the trial judge should have instructed the jury on accident, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless conduct, and that the judge mishandled a jury question about causation. He also claimed his trial lawyer was ineffective for not objecting to that response, not reviewing recorded interviews in police files, and not seeking a hearing on whether his statements to police were voluntary. The Supreme Court of Georgia found no error in the jury instructions or the judge's handling of the jury's question, and concluded the ineffective assistance claims failed, so it affirmed the convictions and sentence.

The trial court properly refused the requested jury charges on accident, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless conduct because the evidence showed either an intentional shooting or no crime at all under self-defense; its response to the jury's causation question was not error; and trial counsel's performance did not amount to ineffective assistance because Stepp-McCommons failed to show resulting prejudice.

The decision reinforces that Georgia trial judges can decline to give jury instructions unsupported by the evidence and can point juries back to standard instructions rather than answer questions directly, guidance relevant to future criminal trials and appeals across the state.

Judgment affirmed

1. The court applied the rule that a jury instruction on an affirmative defense or lesser offense is only required if there is at least slight evidence supporting it; where the evidence shows either the full crime charged or no crime at all, no lesser-offense instruction is required.
2. Because Stepp-McCommons's own testimony showed he intentionally fired his gun at Gardenhire multiple times, believing he was acting in self-defense, there was no evidence supporting an accidental discharge, so charges on accident, involuntary manslaughter (which requires no intent to kill), and reckless conduct (which requires only negligence, not intent) were properly refused.
3. On the jury's question about causation in felony murder, the court applied the rule that trial judges have discretion to redirect jurors to instructions already given rather than answer questions directly, and since the pattern charges already given correctly addressed causation, there was no plain error, especially because the shooting's causal role in Gardenhire's death was undisputed.
4. Applying the two-part test from Strickland v. Washington, which requires showing both unreasonably poor legal representation and a reasonable probability the outcome would have differed without it, the court found no deficient performance in failing to raise a meritless objection to the causation response.
5. On the claim that counsel failed to use a police interview recording for impeachment, the court found the recording's content was not clearly exculpatory and was cumulative of evidence already before the jury, so no prejudice was shown.
6. On the claim that counsel should have sought a hearing on whether Stepp-McCommons's statements to police were voluntary (a Jackson-Denno hearing, which decides if a confession was properly obtained), the court found the recording and detectives' testimony showed he waived his Miranda rights and never clearly invoked them, so such a hearing would not have led to suppression and no prejudice resulted.

• felony murder conviction
• jury instructions
• ineffective assistance of counsel
• Miranda rights
• self-defense claim