Sapp v. State, 300 Ga. 768

Night of July 27, 2012: Timothy Sapp and his brother Cyrus Bell went to Woodbine Apartments; Sapp asked resident Clarence Loggins if he had seen victim Christopher “Peanut” Smith and Loggins felt a gun in Sapp’s waistband.
A neighbor saw a man in all black, heard two gunshots, and found Smith shot in the back; Smith later died at the hospital.
Surveillance video showed Sapp in all black carrying a book bag and captured an initial confrontation between Sapp and Smith.
After the shooting Sapp and Bell went to nephew Telvis Brown’s house; Sapp arrived wearing all black with a bandana, changed clothes, left a bag containing two guns; Brown photographed the guns and later received warnings from Sapp not to talk.
Forensic evidence: three .40-caliber casings at the scene were fired from the same firearm; the two guns in Brown’s photo were consistent with Glock appearance; a fiber on the victim’s shirt was consistent with fibers from Sapp’s black jeans.
Procedural posture: Sapp was indicted on multiple counts including malice murder; convicted by jury of malice murder and weapons offenses; sentence life w/o parole plus consecutive weapons terms; appeal challenges sufficiency of the evidence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of the evidence to support convictions	Sapp argued convictions rested on purely circumstantial evidence and were insufficient	State argued circumstantial and direct evidence (surveillance, witness, forensics, admissions, conduct) permitted rational jury to convict	Court held evidence, viewed in favor of verdict, was sufficient to support convictions

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for reviewing sufficiency of evidence)
Hayes v. State, 292 Ga. 506 (deference to jury on credibility and weight of evidence)
Belsar v. State, 276 Ga. 261 (presence, companionship, and conduct may support inference of criminal intent)
Thomas v. State, 300 Ga. 433 (discussion of circumstantial evidence standard and Jackson review)