Davenport v. State, 311 Ga. 667

On August 22, 2014, Deanthony Davenport and co-defendant Austin McIntyre planned to rob Willie Bernard Thomas at Thomas’s residence.
Davenport fired three shots through Thomas’s glass front door; two bullets struck Thomas, who died at the scene and identified Davenport as his shooter before collapsing.
Davenport returned the borrowed .40-caliber Glock to Derrick Britt after the shooting; GBI ballistics matched the recovered bullet and casings to that pistol.
Davenport admitted to his cousin that he went to rob Thomas and that he shot him; at trial he claimed self-defense, asserting Thomas fired first.
A Tift County jury convicted Davenport of malice murder and related offenses; he received life imprisonment. On appeal he challenged (1) sufficiency of the evidence, (2) ineffective assistance for not seeking a curative instruction or mistrial after hearsay, and (3) the trial court’s refusal to charge voluntary manslaughter.

Issue	Davenport's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for malice murder	Evidence was insufficient because Davenport acted in self-defense; Thomas was armed	Evidence (eyewitness ID, confession to cousin, ballistics, motive to rob) supports conviction; jury could reject self-defense	Affirmed — evidence sufficient under Jackson v. Virginia standard
Ineffective assistance for failure to request curative instruction or mistrial after hearsay from victim’s mother	Trial counsel’s omission was deficient and prejudicial	Any deficiency not prejudicial because the testimony was struck, jury instructed to disregard, and the statement was cumulative of other evidence	Affirmed — no Strickland prejudice shown
Trial court refused voluntary manslaughter charge	Requested charge was warranted as a lesser offense	Record showed no provocation to excite passions; defendant pursued self-defense, not provocation theory	Affirmed — no evidence justified voluntary manslaughter instruction; plain-error review fails

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective-assistance two‑prong standard)
Mosby v. State, 300 Ga. 450 (burden on State to disprove self-defense once raised)
Koonce v. State, 305 Ga. 671 (no prejudice where challenged hearsay was cumulative)
Holmes v. State, 273 Ga. 644 (presumption that jurors follow curative instructions)
Jackson v. State, 301 Ga. 878 (provocation standard for voluntary manslaughter)
Smith v. State, 296 Ga. 731 (fear or fighting alone insufficient provocation for voluntary manslaughter)
Campbell v. State, 292 Ga. 766 (whether provocation suffices is a question of law)
White v. State, 291 Ga. 7 (plain-error standard for unpreserved jury charge objections)