Gobert v. State

Michael Gobert opened fire on a car carrying three men who had been involved in an altercation with his stepdaughter and were leaving his property. One man, Johnny Montgomery, was shot in the head and died; two others were wounded or held at gunpoint. A Walker County jury convicted Gobert of felony murder and aggravated assault, though it acquitted him of malice murder. On appeal, Gobert argued the evidence was too weak given his claims of self-defense and defense of others, that he was wrongly excluded from bench conferences during jury selection, that jury selection and the charge conference should have been transcribed, and that the trial judge should have rebuked the prosecutor or granted a mistrial over a comment made during closing argument about why a witness didn't testify. The Supreme Court of Georgia rejected every argument. It found the shooting evidence sufficient because the men were fleeing and posed no threat when Gobert fired, held that Gobert's lawyer validly waived his presence at bench conferences, found the transcription claim factually wrong, and ruled any error regarding the prosecutor's remark was harmless given the strong evidence and the judge's instructions.

The court held the evidence was sufficient to support felony murder and aggravated assault convictions because Gobert shot at fleeing occupants of a car who posed no imminent threat, defeating his self-defense claims, and that his other trial-error claims either were waived, factually unsupported, or harmless.

The ruling reinforces that Georgia's self-defense and defense-of-habitation laws don't protect someone who shoots at people who are already retreating, and it confirms that defense attorneys can waive a client's presence at bench conferences without a personal, on-record waiver from the defendant.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard from Jackson v. Virginia, which asks whether any rational jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt viewing evidence favorably to the verdict, without reweighing conflicting testimony.
2. Applying that standard, the court found eyewitness testimony and Gobert's own admission that he fired multiple shots into the car sufficient to prove aggravated assault, the predicate felony for the felony murder charge.
3. The court rejected Gobert's self-defense and defense-of-habitation arguments (Georgia law that justifies deadly force only when reasonably necessary to prevent death or serious injury) because the men were fleeing and posed no imminent threat when he fired, leaving those defenses for the jury to weigh and reject.
4. On the bench-conference issue, the court explained that a defendant has a right to be present at critical trial stages like jury selection, but that right can be waived by counsel in the defendant's presence without objection, which is what happened when Gobert's lawyer told the judge Gobert would stay seated.
5. The court found the claim that jury selection and the charge conference went untranscribed was contradicted by the record, since both were in fact transcribed.
6. Even assuming the trial judge should have rebuked the prosecutor under Georgia's statute requiring rebukes for improper prejudicial remarks (O.C.G.A. § 17-8-75), the court found any such error harmless because the evidence of guilt was strong and the judge had instructed jurors that closing arguments are not evidence, and it found no abuse of discretion in denying a mistrial for the same reasons.

• felony murder conviction
• self-defense claim
• jury selection rights
• closing argument dispute
• Walker County shooting