Gadson v. State, 303 Ga. 871

In 2005 Joseph Gadson and his brother Nkosi were jointly tried and convicted for crimes including malice murder, related aggravated assaults, two burglaries, possession of cocaine, and a firearms offense arising from incidents between Sept. 21 and Oct. 11, 2005.
Victim Tarah Medsker identified Joseph (through a stocking mask) and Nkosi as assailants in the October 11 murder; police recovered a stocking mask, a stolen camera, a gun, a cell phone, and drug paraphernalia from the brothers’ apartment.
The Count 8 burglary (the earlier apartment burglary between Sept. 21 and Oct. 10) was supported only by circumstantial evidence; no direct eyewitness placed Joseph at that earlier burglary.
At trial the court did not give an unrequested jury instruction tracking former OCGA § 24-4-6 (proof by circumstantial evidence). Joseph did not object at trial and raised the omission on appeal as plain error.
The trial record is missing five documents (arrest warrants for both brothers; the search warrant and affidavit for the brothers’ apartment; and a District Attorney’s Charge Disposition Report). The State could not locate them; the trial court denied the motion for new trial, finding no harm to appellate review.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Gadson)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Whether failure to give unrequested circumstantial-evidence instruction (former OCGA § 24-4-6) on Count 8 is plain error	The evidence for Count 8 was wholly circumstantial, so the trial court’s omission of the §24-4-6 instruction was plain error that likely affected the verdict	Court had given general reasonable-doubt, direct vs. circumstantial, mere-presence, and mere-association instructions that, read as a whole, protected the jury from convicting on speculation	No plain error; omission was obvious but, viewing the charge as a whole and given defense strategy, Gadson failed to show the omission likely affected the verdict on Count 8
Whether missing trial-record documents require a new trial because they prevent full and fair appellate review	The absence of five documents prevents adequate appellate review and thus requires a new trial	The missing items are minimal, were addressed on the record, and Appellant hasn’t shown specific harm; reconstruction efforts and transcript suffice for review	No new trial; appellant failed to allege particularized harm from the missing documents and appellate review is adequate

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (constitutional sufficiency review of evidence) (establishes standard for sufficiency of evidence)
Reeves v. State, 288 Ga. 545 (2011) (jury credibility and single-witness sufficiency)
Stubbs v. State, 265 Ga. 883 (1995) (distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence; requirement to charge on circumstantial evidence when case is wholly circumstantial)
Walker v. State, 295 Ga. 688 (2014) (requirements for circumstantial-evidence charge)
Woodard v. State, 296 Ga. 803 (2015) (evaluate jury charge as a whole)
Bailey v. State, 299 Ga. 807 (2016) (jury may reject alternative hypotheses supported by evidence)
Johnson v. State, 302 Ga. 188 (2017) (State’s responsibility for providing complete transcript; remedies when transcript incomplete)
Sheard v. State, 300 Ga. 117 (2016) (incomplete transcript does not automatically require new trial; need to show harm)
Brockman v. State, 292 Ga. 707 (2013) (missing exhibits do not warrant new trial absent harm)
Manning v. State, 303 Ga. 723 (2018) (plain-error standard reaffirmed)