Robinson v. State, 298 Ga. 455

Background

Robinson and Benjamin Carter were close; surveillance showed Carter committed an armed robbery at Coastal Gold Exchange (CGE) on Sept. 25, 2012, and Carter returned to CGE on Sept. 27, 2012 for an attempted armed robbery.
Robinson drove a black truck, transported Carter to the area, parked nearby, and after Carter was shot while fleeing, Robinson drove Carter away; police pursuit followed and Robinson crashed and fled before capture.
Carter was shot in the back by store owner Johnson during the Sept. 27 incident and later died; a loaded gun found at the scene matched a gun Robinson had been seen with.
Robinson failed to tell police immediately that Carter remained in the truck wounded and made false statements about his relationship to Carter.
Robinson was tried (after a prior mistrial) and convicted of felony murder (predicate: attempt to commit armed robbery), criminal attempt to commit armed robbery, fleeing/eluding, obstruction, and false statements; sentenced to life without parole plus consecutive and concurrent terms.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Robinson)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Sufficiency — party liability for attempted armed robbery	Evidence was circumstantial and did not exclude other reasonable hypotheses; mere presence insufficient.	Robinson shared common criminal intent shown by planning, driving, waiting as getaway driver, flight, concealment of Carter, and prior association with the gun.	Conviction affirmed; circumstantial proof and conduct before/during/after the crime supported party liability.
Sufficiency — proximate cause for felony murder	Robinson's acts did not proximately cause Carter's death; intervening acts (Johnson's shooting) broke causation.	Attempted armed robbery was inherently dangerous; death was a foreseeable result and occurred during the res gestae of the felony.	Conviction affirmed; proximate causation for felony murder satisfied.
Mistrial claim — hearsay elicited in witness response (Johnson)	Prosecutor elicited inadmissible hearsay (reference to prior robbery statement) and committed misconduct requiring mistrial.	Question was general; statement was unresponsive hearsay; trial court offered curative instruction and the hearsay was never entered into evidence.	No abuse of discretion; court properly handled and curative instruction was available (defense declined it).
Evidentiary notice / prior bad acts (Polite-Brown testimony)	Testimony that Robinson called prior robbery a "good lick" improperly linked him to a separate robbery and violated notice rules under OCGA § 24-4-404(b).	Testimony referred to the same robbery timeline and was not introducing an unrelated crime; trial court found no improper scheme to introduce other-acts evidence.	Waived at trial or without merit; court did not abuse discretion in denying mistrial.
Jury instruction on self-defense (regarding Johnson's shooting)	Instruction was misleading or unnecessary and could shift burden; should have used defense's requested wording.	Instruction was legally correct, modeled on pattern instructions, and accurately framed the reasonable-person standard in the charge as a whole.	No plain error; instruction proper and not prejudicial.
Ineffective assistance — failure to object to ID testimony and opening statement	Counsel should have objected to identifications from surveillance and to State's opening linking Carter to Sept. 25 robbery.	Strategic reasons: avoid highlighting contested prior robbery, standard practice not to object to opening, and tactic to let State "lock in" weak evidence for rebuttal.	No deficient performance; tactical decisions were reasonable and not prejudicial under Strickland.

Key Cases Cited

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (legal standard for sufficiency of the evidence)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (ineffective assistance — performance and prejudice test)
State v. Jackson, 287 Ga. 646 (proximate causation in Georgia felony murder law)
Davis v. State, 290 Ga. 757 (considering felony elements in actual circumstances and foreseeability)
Lowe v. State, 295 Ga. 623 (circumstantial evidence and jury role in evaluating alternative hypotheses)