Michael Jefferson was convicted of armed robbery and aggravated assault after he and two others attacked a pedestrian and took his backpack. On appeal, he challenged the jury instructions on lesser offenses and argued that one aggravated-assault conviction should have merged with the armed-robbery conviction. The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed the challenged instructional ruling but held that the remaining aggravated-assault count arose from the same uninterrupted transaction as the robbery. The court explained that using different weapons does not avoid merger when the offenses are part of one criminal episode and neither was completed before the other began. It vacated the conviction and sentence on that count and remanded for resentencing, while otherwise affirming the judgment.