Carter v. State

Chernard Carter and his two co-defendants were involved in a gunfight at an apartment complex, and a stray bullet killed Lynette Reese. Carter was charged, in relevant part, with malice murder and three counts of felony murder predicated on aggravated assault. At trial, the jury was also instructed on provocation and voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of both malice murder and felony murder. The jury found Carter not guilty of malice murder and not guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of malice murder. The jury also found Carter not guilty of each count of felony murder i.e. the two counts relating to Carter shooting at each of his co-defendants and causing Reese’s death, and one charge relating to Carter committing an aggravated assault by shooting Reese, which led to her death. However, it found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of each count of felony murder. Thus, Carter had been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of the alleged felony murder of Reese, but had also been found not guilty of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of the alleged malice murder of Reese.

On appeal, Carter argued that the verdict was an impermissible repugnant verdict because he was found both not guilty and guilty of the same crime of voluntary manslaughter with respect to the same victim, Reese. See Wiley v. State, 124 Ga. App. 654 185 SE2d 582 1971 where defendant was found both guilty and not guilty of identical charges in an accusation, the defendant’s motion in arrest of judgment to challenge the guilty verdict should have been granted, because verdicts which are repugnant and self contradictory cannot be allowed to stand citation omitted. The Court of Appeals upheld Carter’s voluntary manslaughter conviction, and we granted Carter’s petition for a writ of certiorari to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in this ruling. As explained more fully below, although we disagree with some of the Court of Appeals’ reasoning, we conclude that the Court of Appeals ultimately reached the correct result in upholding Carter’s conviction for voluntary manslaughter. We therefore affirm.