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Stinson v. State

The trial court erred in failing to charge the jury that the state had to disprove the murder defendant's affirmative defense of accident beyond a reasonable doubt.

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A jury found Johnny Stinson guilty of the felony murder of Rosemary Reynolds while committing an aggravated assault against her, and the trial court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. The trial court subsequently denied Stinson’s motion for new trial, and he appeals from the judgment of conviction and sentence entered on the jury’s guilty verdict.1

1. Stinson and the victim lived together. After an argument between the two, a shot was fired and the police were called to their apartment. The officers discovered the body of Ms. Reynolds lying on the bedroom floor. She died as the result of a gunshot wound to the head. Stinson originally claimed that the victim accidently shot herself, stating that he struggled with her without realizing that she had a gun in her possession. He later acknowledged that the two were “wrestling with the gun when it went off” at an arm’s length away. Thereafter, he admitted that he was holding the weapon when it fired, informing the officers that he and Ms. Reynolds “were fighting over the gun and she spun away. He had the gun and was behind her for a second. That is when the gun went off.” The weapon was not found on the premises, and Stinson eventually showed the officers where he had thrown it into the nearby woods. The medical testimony indicated that, contrary to any of Stinson’s versions of the events, the bullet killing the victim was fired at close range from above into the back of her head. From this evidence, a rational trier of fact was authorized to find proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Stinson was guilty of the felony murder of Ms. Reynolds while committing an aggravated assault against her. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560 1979; Mitchell v. State, 271 Ga. 242, 243 1 516 SE2d 782 1999.

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