Taylor v. State, 316 Ga. 17

On November 6, 2017, Malik Taylor drove a car in a drive-by shooting; one passenger, Jyleel Solomon, was killed by return fire. Taylor and two co-defendants were indicted; Taylor was tried jointly with Goodman and convicted of felony murder (predicated on aggravated assaults) and related charges.
Taylor asserted self-defense/justification at trial and requested the jury charge on that defense; the trial court instructed the jury that justification is an affirmative defense, that the State must disprove it beyond a reasonable doubt, and that justification is unavailable if the defendant was committing a felony.
The court then identified the ‘‘arguable felony’’ as aggravated assault and recited the pattern-elements language (including the sentence Taylor later challenged as wording the aggravated-assault elements).
Taylor did not object to the instruction at trial and raised the challenge for the first time on appeal, so his claim was reviewed for plain error.
Taylor argued the challenged sentence could be read to shift the burden on justification to him; the Supreme Court of Georgia rejected that strained reading, found no plain error, and affirmed his convictions and sentence.

Issue	Taylor's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Whether the jury instruction on the affirmative defense of justification improperly shifted the burden of proof to Taylor	The instruction could be read to require the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the 126 Central group put Taylor in reasonable fear before finding justification — effectively making Taylor prove self-defense	Read in context the charge told jurors the State must disprove justification beyond a reasonable doubt; the challenged sentence merely tracked the aggravated-assault elements and did not shift the burden	The Court held Taylor’s reading was strained; the instruction, read as a whole, did not shift the burden. Plain error not shown; convictions affirmed.

McClure v. State, 306 Ga. 856 (2019) (disapproving the phrasing that an affirmative defense “admits the doing of the act”)
Campbell-Williams v. State, 309 Ga. 585 (2020) (jury instructions must be read as a whole to determine meaning)
Lyons v. State, 309 Ga. 15 (2020) (approving instruction that aggravated assault can be shown by an attempt or by placing a victim in reasonable fear)
Willis v. State, 315 Ga. 19 (2022) (plain-error standard for unpreserved jury-charge objections)
Goodman v. State, 313 Ga. 762 (2022) (related appeal affirming co-defendant’s convictions)
State v. Brown, 314 Ga. 588 (2022) (distinguishing when self-defense is unavailable because defendant was committing a separate felony)