Dinkins v. State, 300 Ga. 713

Victim DaJohn Milton was shot at an apartment complex; witnesses saw two Black men in white shirts and jeans standing over the victim, one holding a gun. The victim later identified the shooter as “Trey Deuce” (appellant Trey Dinkins).
A nearby resident saw two men — one taller, one shorter — change from white to black shirts and discard the white shirts in bushes; police recovered the white shirts and two guns wrapped in them, including a Bersa .380 that forensics tied to bullets in the victim.
Police recovered a cell phone belonging to co-defendant Marquis Lowe; witnesses placed Lowe and Dinkins together shortly after the shooting. The victim died from multiple gunshot wounds the next day.
Lowe was tried and convicted first; at Dinkins’s trial Lowe invoked his Fifth Amendment right and did not testify. The trial court dismissed him after an off-the-record consultation with Lowe’s appellate counsel and Lowe’s on-the-record assertion he would invoke the Fifth.
Dinkins was convicted of malice murder and related charges and sentenced to life plus a consecutive five-year firearm sentence. He appealed, raising sufficiency, evidentiary handling of Lowe’s invocation, prosecutorial misconduct, and ineffective-assistance claims.

Issue	Dinkins’ Argument	State’s Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence	Evidence insufficient to prove Dinkins was shooter beyond reasonable doubt	Physical and testimonial evidence supported conviction	Affirmed — evidence sufficient per Jackson v. Virginia standard
Handling of Lowe’s Fifth Amendment invocation	Trial court should have questioned Lowe on whether any non‑incriminating questions could be answered (e.g., his height); error in dismissing him outside jury	Lowe affirmatively invoked Fifth on the record; Dinkins failed to make contemporaneous objection to procedure	Waived on appeal for lack of contemporaneous objection; not reviewed on merits
Prosecutorial misconduct for eliciting false testimony (Robbins’ timeline and phone-call testimony)	State knew Robbins’ phone records conflicted with his testimony; knowingly elicited false testimony	Inconsistencies go to witness credibility for the jury; no objection at trial; not prosecutorial misconduct shown	Rejected — discrepancies are for jury to resolve; claim waived for lack of trial objection
Ineffective assistance of counsel	Trial counsel failed to (1) object to Lowe procedure, (2) impeach Robbins, (3) impeach Davidson about height inconsistency	Counsel’s decisions were strategic; height testimony would be cumulative; record shows jury heard inconsistencies; no prejudice shown	Rejected — counsel not shown deficient nor prejudicial; failure to call Lowe on height would be cumulative and possibly incriminating

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency of evidence)
Benton v. State, 300 Ga. 202 (contemporaneous objection requirement to preserve error)
Vega v. State, 285 Ga. 32 (credibility and conflicts in evidence for jury to resolve)
Pruitt v. State, 282 Ga. 30 (ineffective assistance two‑prong Strickland standard)
Williams v. State, 265 Ga. 681 (no deficiency for calling cumulative witnesses)
Wilson v. State, 297 Ga. 86 (cumulative evidence and objection standards)
Nix v. State, 280 Ga. 141 (trial strategy and impeachment choices)