Issa v. the State, 340 Ga. App. 327

In Nov. 2008 two masked intruders entered a Roswell home, bound three siblings, demanded money/drugs, and loaded valuables into a car; a struggle produced gunshots and one intruder was wounded in the leg.
One sibling was raped; victims could not identify the masked intruders at the scene. DNA from blood on a backyard fence matched a CODIS profile identifying Ahmed Issa; Issa later received hospital treatment for a gunshot wound the same night.
Issa was tried jointly with co-defendant Kenneth Trusty on charges including conspiracy, burglary, aggravated assault (four counts), three counts of attempted armed robbery (one per victim), false imprisonment, and possession of a firearm during a felony; Issa was convicted of most counts but acquitted of rape and kidnapping counts.
Post-trial the court merged some counts, vacated burglary and one firearm count, and denied Issa’s motion for new trial; Issa appealed challenging evidence sufficiency (esp. attempted armed robbery), severance denial, aggravated assault indictment and jury instruction, mistrial over comments about silence, leading questions, lenity in recidivist sentencing, and ineffective assistance of counsel.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in all respects.

Issue	Issa's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for attempted armed robbery	Evidence failed to show which victim owned property; insufficient to prove attempt	Robbery is offense against possession, not ownership; evidence showed men held victims at gunpoint and began loading property into car	Affirmed: circumstantial evidence and actions were sufficient to support three attempted-armed-robbery convictions
Motion to sever joint trial	Spillover prejudice from Trusty’s stronger/bad-acts evidence required separate trial	Only two defendants, shared scheme, non-antagonistic defenses, limiting instructions provided	Affirmed: no abuse of discretion in denying severance
Aggravated-assault indictment & jury instruction	Indictment failed to allege elements of simple assault; court failed to instruct on simple assault	Indictment used statutory language and apprised defendant; charge as a whole included requisite assault definitions; any verbal slip was harmless	Affirmed: indictment sufficient; jury instruction not plain error
Ineffective assistance of counsel	Closing theory (third perpetrator faked being shot) was absurd and prejudicial	Counsel chose a strategic alternative defense to explain forensic evidence; strategy falls within reasonable professional conduct	Affirmed: Strickland not satisfied; counsel’s strategy reasonable

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-pronged test for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Whitaker v. State, 283 Ga. 521 (2008) (defendant's silence not to be used against him; mistrial discretion)
Ham v. State, 303 Ga. App. 232 (2010) (robbery is crime against possession, not ownership)
Creecy v. State, 235 Ga. 542 (1975) (identity and ownership not essential elements for robbery)
Mack v. State, 323 Ga. App. 821 (2013) (construction of recidivist statute as applied to armed robbery sentencing)