At a late-night gathering around a fire barrel, Shalynda Perry and Kenyatta Simmons gave conflicting accounts of how Simmons suffered severe stomach burns: Simmons said Perry pushed her in without provocation, while Perry said she was defending herself from Simmons’s bottle attack. A jury convicted Perry of aggravated assault and aggravated battery, and the trial court denied her motion for a new trial. The Court of Appeals held the evidence sufficient for aggravated battery because the jury could credit Simmons’s account and infer malicious intent; the assault count merged into the battery conviction. But the self-defense issue was central, and the court plainly erred by omitting that the State had to disprove justification beyond a reasonable doubt; no other witnesses saw how the fight began. The court reversed the denial of a new trial, while explaining that the sufficient evidence permits retrial.