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Fields v. State

The jury was entitled to conclude that the defendant was not justified in using force greater than was necessary to defend himself when he used a baseball bat to beat the unarmed victim.

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Justin Fields appeals from his conviction for aggravated assault, arguing that the evidence was insufficient and that the trial court erred when it refused to allow evidence of a witness’s prior acts, when it limited an inquiry into a second witness’s bias, and when it delivered the charge on aggravated assault. We find no reversible error and affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the evidence shows that in the course of a hostile verbal exchange in a parking lot, the unarmed victim and his brother advanced on Fields, who was standing with a baseball bat in his hand. Fields swung twice at the victim, causing him to lose his balance, and then brought the bat down on the victim’s head. Fields then fled on foot and jumped into a friend’s car. The bat, which Fields had thrown out of the car window, was recovered in the woods next to a road leading from the fight scene. Fields bragged about the incident at a party that night and told an acquaintance in a car several days later that the acquaintance was “riding with a murderer.” After a jury trial, Fields was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years with ten to serve. His motion for new trial was denied.

On appeal from a criminal conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, with the defendant no longer enjoying a presumption of innocence. Reese v. State , 270 Ga. App. 522, 523 607 SE2d 165 2004. We neither weigh the evidence nor judge the credibility of witnesses, but determine only whether the evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the defendant guilty of the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia , 443 U. S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979.

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