Fullerv.State
At a hotel, Sonya Fuller’s son Joshua entered her room shortly before gunshots killed Anthony Reid; Fuller then told investigators an unknown robber committed the shooting without disclosing Joshua’s presence. A jury convicted Fuller as a party to felony murder predicated on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and the related aggravated assault, and she challenged the evidence and denial of a directed verdict. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the circumstantial evidence—including Joshua’s entry without forced entry, physical evidence linking him to the shooting, and Fuller’s false account—allowed jurors to infer she shared his intent to rob Reid and was sufficient under constitutional due-process review; she did not raise a state-law circumstantial-evidence claim. The court affirmed; Chief Justice Peterson and Justices Warren, Bethel, and Pinson dissented from the felony-murder ruling.
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