Wilson v. the State, 336 Ga. App. 60

Defendant Kevin Wilson and victim William Cade lived in same apartment; Wilson had recently broken up with Cade’s sister but still resided there with her and their child.
On Jan. 4, 2012, Wilson confronted his former girlfriend outside the apartment holding an open pocketknife, threatened to cut her, and seized the child; she called police and wanted Wilson out.
The next morning Wilson returned to collect belongings, destroyed property, and during a confrontation with Cade he pulled a knife, grabbed Cade, and stabbed him five times.
Wilson was convicted of aggravated assault and appealed, challenging (1) sufficiency of the evidence, (2) admission of prior-act evidence (an earlier altercation with Cade’s sister) under OCGA § 24-4-404(b) and as intrinsic evidence, and (3) ineffective assistance for failing to object to the alternative ground for admission.
Trial court admitted the earlier incident as other-act evidence for purposes including intent; the Court of Appeals reviewed admissibility under Georgia’s three-prong Rule 404(b) test and affirmed the conviction.

Issue	Wilson's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for aggravated assault	Evidence was insufficient or witness credibility flawed	Evidence (knife, stabbing, eyewitness testimony) supports aggravated assault conviction	Affirmed: viewed in light most favorable to prosecution, evidence sufficient to support conviction
Admissibility under OCGA § 24-4-404(b) (other acts)	Prior altercation should be excluded as improper character evidence or irrelevant to intent	Prior knife incident is probative of intent and other permissible purposes; admissible under Rule 404(b)	Admitted: trial court did not abuse discretion; 404(b) three-prong test satisfied (relevance to intent, probative outweighs prejudice, proof by preponderance)
Admissibility as intrinsic evidence	Prior act should not be admitted as intrinsic to the charged offense	Alternatively, evidence was intrinsic (trial court gave alternative ground)	Court did not address this because 404(b) ruling was sufficient; no need to reach intrinsic-ground error
Ineffective assistance for failing to object to alternative ground	Counsel ineffective for objecting to only one ground (not the intrinsic ground)	Counsel not ineffective because evidence was admissible on 404(b) ground; no duty to object to admissible evidence	Rejected: no ineffective assistance because evidence was admissible on an independent ground

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (established standard for appellate sufficiency review)
Miller v. State, 273 Ga. 831 (jury verdict upheld if competent evidence supports each element)
Bradshaw v. State, 296 Ga. 650 (Georgia three-prong Rule 404(b) test explained)
State v. Jones, 297 Ga. 156 (other-acts evidence may be relevant to intent whether offense requires specific or general intent)
United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099 (Rule 403: unfair prejudice must substantially outweigh probative value)
Daughtie v. State, 297 Ga. 261 (counsel not required to object to admissible evidence)