Fullwood v. State

After a jury trial, Dale Fullwood was convicted of aggravated assault and battery. He appeals, challenging a jury instruction and the effectiveness of his trial counsel. The challenges are without merit, and we thus affirm Fullwood’s convictions. 1. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that during an altercation, Fullwood stabbed James Lambus with a knife and bit Crystal Lambus on the back. The evidence was sufficient to authorize a rational trier of fact to find Fullwood guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of aggravated assault for the stabbing and battery for the biting.1

2. Fullwood claims that the trial court’s jury charge on the offense of aggravated assault was inadequate because it did not include the definition of simple assault contained in OCGA § 16-5-20 a 1, which provides that such an assault is committed when a person “attempts to commit a violent injury to the person of another.” However, contrary to Fullwood’s claim, the jury charge on aggravated assault did include such language about attempting to commit a violent injury. The trial court instructed the jury: A person commits the offense of aggravated assault when that person assaults another person with a deadly weapon. To constitute such an assault, actual injury to the alleged victim need not be shown. It is only necessary that the evidence show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant attempted to cause a violent injury to the alleged victim .2 The instant case is materially different from Coney v. State ,3 upon which Fullwood relies. Unlike the aggravated assault charge in this case, the inadequate charge in Coney did not instruct the jury that the defendant must have attempted to cause a violent injury to the victim.4 Moreover, the decision in Coney was controlled by Chase v. State ,5 in which an aggravated assault instruction was found to be erroneous because, as the Supreme Court explained, “the failure to inform the jury that appellant had to have attempted to commit a violent injury on the victim requires reversal of appellant’s conviction.”6 Since the aggravated assault instruction in the present case clearly informed the jury that Fullwood must have attempted to cause a violent injury to the victim, there was no error.