Lynn v. State

The trial court erred in disallowing additional evidence of the murder victim's alleged infidelity, since the defendant's discovery that his wife had been unfaithful could amount to sufficient provocation necessary to reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter.

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Appellant James Morris Lynn, Jr. was tried by a Barrow County jury and convicted of the murder of Tonya Lynn, his wife of sixteen years. At trial, Appellant did not dispute that he killed Tonya, but he claimed that her killing was only voluntary manslaughter, arguing that it was provoked by, among other things, her admission that she recently had been unfaithful. The trial court permitted Appellant to testify about this admission, but it refused to allow additional evidence of her recent infidelity, including the testimony of two men with whom she allegedly was having extramarital affairs around the time of her death. On appeal, Appellant contends that the trial court erred when it disallowed this additional evidence as irrelevant. We agree and reverse his conviction.1

1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence shows that—late on the evening of July 26, 2011 or in the early hours of the following day—Appellant and Tonya argued in their Winder home, and at the conclusion of their argument, Appellant beat Tonya with a baseball bat. Tonya died as a result of the beating, and Appellant hid her body in a well. Eventually, Appellant confessed these things to investigators, and he directed them to the well, where they found Tonya’s body. When Appellant testified at trial, he acknowledged again that he had beaten Tonya to death. Appellant does not dispute that the evidence is legally sufficient to sustain his conviction, but consistent with our usual practice in murder cases, we have considered the sufficiency of the evidence. Upon our review of the record, we conclude that the evidence presented at trial was more than sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant was guilty of Tonya’s murder. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 319 III B 99 SCt 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.

Lynn v. State

The trial court erred in disallowing additional evidence of the murder victim's alleged infidelity, since the defendant's discovery that his wife had been unfaithful could amount to sufficient provocation necessary to reduce a charge of murder to manslaughter.

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