Morrison v. State, 300 Ga. 426

Morrison and victim Vonyell Byrd were romantically involved and lived together; they argued at a nightclub the night of July 10, 2008.
Byrd returned to their apartment and was found shot in the back of the head at close range with a shotgun; she died.
Morrison told police he had broken up with Byrd at the club; he claimed Byrd had a shotgun when he returned and that the gun discharged while it was in her hand (he denied firing the shot).
Forensic and crime-scene evidence (wound location and shot trajectory) contradicted Morrison’s account that the barrel had been pointing upward toward Byrd’s face when it discharged.
A jury convicted Morrison of malice murder and unlawful possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; he was sentenced to life plus five years.
On appeal, Morrison challenged the legal sufficiency of the evidence and raised ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims (failure to pursue a justification defense; failure to object to security-guard testimony as hearsay).

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Legal sufficiency: murder vs. accident	No rational jury could find murder beyond reasonable doubt; death was accidental	Evidence (including forensic) supports jury verdict; conflicting self-serving statement insufficient	Affirmed: evidence sufficient for murder and firearm-possession conviction (Jackson standard)
Ineffective assistance—failure to pursue justification defense	Counsel should have advanced justification/self-defense alternative	Morrison’s statement did not claim he shot Byrd in defending himself; counsel reasonably pursued accident theory	No deficient performance; trial strategy reasonable given the record; claim fails under Strickland
Ineffective assistance—failure to object to hearsay (security guard testimony)	Counsel was deficient for not objecting to guard’s testimony that Byrd said she didn’t want to go home with Morrison	Trial counsel reasonably declined to object because testimony corroborated defense (Byrd was angry and likely to arm herself); admissibility arguable under hearsay exceptions	No deficiency or prejudice shown; decision to forgo objection was a reasonable trial choice
Cumulative prejudice from alleged errors	Combined errors undermined confidence in verdict	No individual deficient performance established, so cumulative-prejudice claim fails	Denied: no cumulative prejudice where no deficient acts shown

Lowe v. State, 295 Ga. 623 (2014) (issues as to reasonableness of alternative hypotheses are for the jury)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) (two-part test for ineffective assistance of counsel)
Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365 (1986) (ineffective-assistance principles for counsel performance review)
Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362 (2000) (prejudice standard under Strickland explained)
Turner v. State, 262 Ga. 359 (1992) (discussion of accidental discharge vs. justification contexts)
Stinchcomb v. State, 280 Ga. 170 (2006) (counsel not deficient for failing to pursue defense unsupported by evidence)
State v. Mobley, 296 Ga. 876 (2015) (strategic choices about objections are reviewed for reasonableness)
Smith v. State, 288 Ga. 348 (2010) (no cumulative-prejudice relief where counsel’s performance not shown deficient)
Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369 (1993) (merger principles for overlapping convictions)