A defense attorney who successfully represented a man pleading self-defense in a Douglas County murder trial said the verdict could be the first of many showing the traditionally conservative county is shifting its stance on these types of cases.

Kevin James Flamer, 20, was charged with 13 crimes related to an incident that occurred shortly after midnight on Oct. 8, 2019, at the Efficiency Lodge motel in Douglasville. He fired his gun 12 times, killing Thomas Edward Ball Jr., who worked at the hotel as a maintenance man and lived there, and injured Alviro Smith.