Cain v. State, 300 Ga. 614

On June 19, 2010, Calvin Davis was fatally shot in a motel room; one bullet killed him and absence of stippling showed he was at least 18 inches from the shooter.
Timothy Cain (appellant) had been with Yoshanda Mitchell and Andre Wooden earlier; Mitchell and Wooden testified Cain produced a gun in the victim’s bathroom and fired five shots.
Cain claimed he shot in self-defense, alleging the victim and Wooden tried to rob him; the jury acquitted him of malice murder but convicted him of felony murder (aggravated assault) and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.
Cain was sentenced to life without parole for felony murder and a consecutive five-year term for the weapons conviction.
Cain appealed, arguing (1) insufficient evidence, (2) erroneous exclusion of testimony about Mitchell’s statements, and (3) ineffective assistance for failing to object when the State questioned character witnesses about Cain’s mother’s reported fear of a planned robbery.

Issue	Cain's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of the evidence for felony murder and firearm possession	Evidence insufficient; Jackson standard not met	Eyewitness testimony of Mitchell and Wooden directly supported convictions	Affirmed — eyewitness testimony authorized a rational jury to convict beyond a reasonable doubt (Jackson applied)
Whether evidence was "wholly circumstantial" under former OCGA § 24-4-6	Conviction improper if evidence wholly circumstantial and doesn’t exclude other hypotheses	The evidence included direct eyewitness testimony, so § 24-4-6 inapplicable	Affirmed — evidence was not wholly circumstantial; statute inapplicable
Exclusion of testimony about Mitchell’s on-the-day statements (hearsay/evidence)	Mitchell’s statements would show innocent intent (attending a party); exclusion was error	Trial objections were not preserved under pre-plain-error Evidence Code; counsel did not register complaint	Waived — claim forfeited because no contemporaneous objection under former rules (Durham)
Ineffective assistance for failing to object to State’s questioning of character witnesses about mother’s reported warning	Counsel should have objected for lack of foundation; questioning required a reliable basis	State had a police report (provided in discovery) containing the mother’s statement, providing foundation and good-faith basis	Denied — an objection on foundation grounds would have been meritless; no ineffective assistance (Grant)

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency of the evidence)
Hill v. State, 297 Ga. 675 (witness credibility is for the jury)
Durham v. State, 292 Ga. 239 (preservation of objection under former Evidence Code)
State v. Clark, 258 Ga. 464 (prosecution may question character witnesses about alleged bad acts with reliable basis)
Medlock v. State, 264 Ga. 697 (similar rule on questioning character witnesses)
Grant v. State, 295 Ga. 126 (failure to make meritless objection is not ineffective assistance)