Ramirez v. State, 294 Ga. 440

Victim Thomas Branch (58) lived in an apartment complex with defendants Kenneth Victor Ramirez (18), Christopher Emery (18), and Wilfredo Rivera (14). Branch was beaten, strangled, and stabbed on March 12, 2011, and was found dead in his apartment.
Ramirez, Rivera, and Emery accompanied Branch to buy beer earlier that evening; Rivera and Ramirez returned with Branch to his apartment where the attack occurred.
Witness testimony at trial: Rivera struck Branch with a flashlight and, at Ramirez’s direction, both Rivera and Ramirez struck Branch with a frying pan; Ramirez then strangled Branch with a belt; Emery procured a knife and Ramirez stabbed Branch in the neck.
Rivera and Emery pleaded guilty to lesser charges and testified against Ramirez; Ronald Sheppard (unindicted) and a neighbor who heard someone say Ramirez was killing the “old man upstairs” also testified. A jailhouse informant testified Ramirez admitted beating, strangling, and stabbing the victim to join a gang.
Ramirez initially denied knowledge but later admitted presence while denying participation; he was indicted for multiple murder counts, convicted by jury of malice murder (strangulation), sentenced to life, and appealed sole on sufficiency of the evidence grounds.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence to sustain conviction	Ramirez: conviction rests solely on uncorroborated accomplice testimony and thus is insufficient under former OCGA § 24‑4‑8	State: multiple accomplices testified and their testimony corroborates one another; other independent evidence (neighbor, jailhouse informant, officer who took statements) also corroborates	Court: Evidence is legally sufficient; accomplice testimony corroborated by other accomplices and additional evidence; conviction affirmed
Identity of person who stabbed victim	Ramirez: testimony conflicted about who actually stabbed Branch (witnesses looked away or left) so stabbing attribution is uncertain	State: multiple witnesses testified Ramirez requested the knife, picked it up, and sounds consistent with stabbing were heard; medical examiner said either stabbing or strangulation would have killed Branch; conviction rested on strangulation count	Court: Even if stabbing attribution were disputed, evidence showed Ramirez strangled Branch and that alone supports malice murder conviction; sufficiency upheld

Hanifa v. State, 269 Ga. 797 (1998) (testimony of one accomplice may be corroborated by testimony of other accomplices)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979) (standard for sufficiency review: whether any rational trier of fact could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt)
Malcolm v. State, 263 Ga. 369 (1993) (vacatur of duplicative murder verdicts under Georgia law)