Winters v. State, 305 Ga. 226

In January 1987 Stephen Gary Jones was shot and killed; Willie Winters III was later indicted (2014) and, after a 2016 trial, convicted of felony murder (underlying felony: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon) and sentenced to life with parole.
Eyewitness Lori Leary testified that Winters approached Jones’s Camaro, reached across the seat, said “you owe me,” and fired; a .22 handgun found in the Camaro caused Jones’s fatal wounds; an exchange of gunfire followed.
Leary gave a pre-hypnosis statement to police and later underwent hypnosis; at trial she described a man putting his hand across her face — the trial court admitted her post-hypnosis testimony over objection.
Winters sought admission of a GBI report section concerning alleged bite marks on Leary (to impeach her); the trial court excluded that portion as not admissible under the public-record exception and as expert opinion without a sponsoring expert.
Winters claimed ineffective assistance because defense counsel relied on an alleged unwritten stipulation about the GBI report and failed to move for a mistrial or continuance when the report was excluded.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Winters)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Sufficiency of evidence for felony murder	Evidence was insufficient and self-defense was plausible; witness accounts conflicted	Evidence showed Winters shot Jones, fled, and jury could infer guilt beyond a reasonable doubt	Affirmed conviction; evidence sufficient under Jackson standard
Admissibility of post-hypnosis testimony	Post-hypnotic testimony differed from pre-hypnotic statement and thus was inadmissible	Post-hypnotic testimony was same in substance as pre-hypnotic statement; minor wording differences allowed	Admission affirmed; no abuse of discretion under Walraven principle
Exclusion of GBI bite-mark report	Report was admissible under OCGA § 24-8-803(8)(C) as a public record and necessary to impeach Leary	Report contained investigative conclusions and expert opinion; not admissible without proper witness or exception	Even if exclusion erred, error was harmless given extensive impeachment already in evidence
Ineffective assistance for relying on alleged stipulation / not moving for mistrial	Counsel’s reliance on unwritten stipulation and failure to seek mistrial/continuance was deficient and prejudicial	Even if deficient, no prejudice because excluded report was cumulative and not central to State’s case	Claim rejected; Strickland prejudice not shown

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (establishes standard for reviewing sufficiency of the evidence)
Walraven v. State, 255 Ga. 276 (witness post-hypnosis testimony limited to substance of pre-hypnosis statements)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (two-part ineffective-assistance standard)
Smith v. State, 299 Ga. 424 (harmfulness standard for nonconstitutional error)
Boothe v. State, 293 Ga. 285 (impeachment already in record can render additional impeachment evidence harmless)