Craig Johnson was convicted of malice murder and related offenses, but the original verbatim transcript of his six-day trial was destroyed in a fire at the court reporter’s home. The State supplied a 14-page narrative reconstruction, and the trial court denied a new trial after finding the substitute record sufficient for appeal. The Supreme Court of Georgia held that a felony defendant is entitled to a complete and correct transcript adequate to identify trial errors and permit meaningful appellate review. Although a narrative transcript may replace a lost verbatim record, the State’s reconstruction omitted crucial details about objections, rulings, jury instructions, motions for mistrial, and other parts of the trial. The court rejected the State’s argument that overwhelming evidence could make the missing record harmless because the appellate court could not evaluate unknown errors or their effect. Johnson was deprived of a fair opportunity to appeal, so the court reversed the denial of a new trial. The State could elect to retry him on the guilty counts.