In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: December 14, 2021

S21A1092. TAYLOR v. THE STATE.

 BOGGS, Presiding Justice.

After an October 2012 jury trial, Daniel Taylor was convicted

of malice murder and possession of a firearm during the commission 

of a felony in connection with the shooting death of his father, 

Richard.1 The trial court denied Taylor’s motion for new trial, and 

he appeals, contending only that the evidence was insufficient as a 

 1 The shooting occurred on May 12, 2011. On August 9, 2011, a Fulton 

County grand jury indicted Taylor for malice murder, felony murder, 

aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a 

felony. Taylor was tried before a jury from October 15 to 17, 2012, and found 

guilty on all counts. Taylor was sentenced to serve life in prison for malice 

murder, plus five years in prison on the firearms charge; the trial court merged 

the aggravated assault charge into the malice murder count, and also 

improperly merged the felony murder charge, which actually was vacated by 

operation of law. Taylor’s trial counsel filed a timely motion for new trial, which 

was amended by appellate counsel on June 6, 2019. After a hearing on March 

10, 2021, the motion was denied on March 15, 2021. Taylor’s notice of appeal 

was filed on April 13, 2021, and the case was docketed in this Court for the

August 2021 term and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
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matter of statutory law because it was entirely circumstantial and

the State failed to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than 

his guilt. Because the evidence was sufficient as a matter of 

statutory law, we affirm.

Construed in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, the 

evidence showed that, in the early morning hours of May 12, 2011, 

Taylor, his mother, Cherrie Ann Taylor, and his father, Richard, 

were sleeping in the living room of their home. Shortly before 2:00

a.m., Taylor’s father was killed by a single 9mm bullet to the chest. 

Taylor’s half-brother, Glen, and Glen’s teenage daughter were also 

present in the home. At trial, Taylor’s family members claimed that 

they could not recall most of the events surrounding the shooting or 

testified inconsistently with earlier statements to police officers or 

emergency personnel. The State then presented evidence of the 

family members’ earlier statements, some of which were recorded 

and some testified to by witnesses, as follows.

The first police officer on the scene testified that Cherrie Ann 

told him she saw Taylor standing over his father and then heard 
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gunshots. She identified Taylor by name, and when the officer found 

Taylor in the back yard of the house and asked him his name, he 

gave the officer the same name. The officer then detained Taylor and 

placed him in the back of a patrol car. An EMT who responded to the 

scene testified that Cherrie Ann told him that she heard gunshots 

and “saw her son standing over her husband with a gun in his hand.”

At the scene, Cherrie Ann also gave a recorded statement to 

the lead investigator. She said that she, Richard, and Taylor were 

asleep in the living room, with Taylor sleeping on the floor between 

her and Richard. The sound of a gunshot woke her up and she saw 

Taylor, with a green gun in his hand, held “down to his side,”

standing over Richard. She screamed for someone to call the police, 

and Taylor left the room.

Glen also gave a recorded statement to the lead investigator, 

in which he stated that he was asleep in the basement when he 

heard Cherrie Ann screaming. He ran upstairs and saw Taylor in 

the family room, “pacing” with his hands in his pockets. Glen ran to 

find Cherrie Ann, and she told him, “Daniel [Taylor] was standing 
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up over him and he shot him.” Glen also stated that when the police 

arrived, Taylor “took off.”

Approximately two weeks later, Glen’s daughter was asked to 

give a recorded statement at Atlanta Police headquarters; she was 

accompanied by Cherrie Ann and Glen, who stated that they had 

additional information to give the lead investigator. Cherrie Ann 

told the investigator that she “was not one hundred percent sure”

that it was Taylor standing over Richard with a green gun in his

hand. Glen gave a second recorded statement, saying that when he 

came upstairs, Taylor walked past him from the kitchen-living room 

area into the family room and started pacing back and forth with his 

hands in his pockets, and then stopped and sat down. Glen asked 

Taylor, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” but Taylor did not 

answer. Glen told the investigator that the house doors were locked 

at night and only Cherrie Ann had a key. He also stated that on the 

day before the shooting, Taylor and Richard talked for a long time 

upstairs behind locked doors, and the family was never able to find 

out what they were discussing. Glen agreed with the investigator 
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that this was “weird” or “odd.” The lead investigator testified that 

Cherrie Ann also had referred to this conversation, stating that “her 

husband had a weird look to him” and that she asked what he and 

Taylor were talking about, but he would not tell her. 

Glen’s daughter gave a recorded statement, stating that she 

was in her bedroom in the middle of the night when Taylor came in 

and asked her what time it was. She stated that this was unusual. 

She saw him walk downstairs and “a few minutes later” heard 

gunshots. She went downstairs and found her grandmother, Cherrie 

Ann, screaming, and Taylor was not there.

While Glen and his daughter testified at trial that they could 

not remember much of what they told the police, Cherrie Ann 

changed her account of the incident entirely. She testified that the 

person she saw standing over her husband was a tall, heavy

stranger with a limp, dressed in bulky clothing so that she could not 

tell if the person was a man or a woman, but she was certain the 

person was not Taylor. She did confirm, however, that the gun the 

stranger was holding was green and that she thought it was Taylor’s 
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gun. 

The lead investigator testified that, after he took initial 

statements from Cherrie Ann and Glen, he spoke to Taylor, who was 

in the back of a patrol car. After reading Taylor the Miranda

warnings,2 the investigator asked if Taylor “would be willing to tell 

me where the firearm” was. Taylor responded that, if the 

investigator would go to his bedroom and bring him his keys and a 

cross from his bed, he would tell the investigator where the gun was. 

The investigator went and got the items, and Taylor then told him 

that if he went into the room to the right of the front door,3 the gun 

would be underneath the cushion of the couch immediately on the 

left. The investigator looked under the cushion, where Taylor said 

the gun would be, and found a loaded, green Glock 9mm handgun 

with one round missing and an additional full magazine, as well as 

 2 See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (86 SCt 1602, 16 LE2d 694) 

(1966).

3 Other witnesses described this as the “family room,” where Glen told 

the police he had seen Taylor pacing after the shooting.
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a black holster sitting on top of the same cushion.4

Evidence was also presented that Taylor previously purchased 

and registered the handgun the investigator found under the sofa 

cushion after Taylor directed him there. A ballistics expert testified 

that this pistol fired the 9mm shell casing found near Richard’s 

body, and that the spent bullet recovered from the body, which was 

“extensively” fragmented, was consistent with having been fired 

from a Glock pistol. Gunshot primer residue was found on Taylor’s 

hands, indicating that he was “in the vicinity” of a weapon when it 

was fired. 

After a jury instruction on similar transaction evidence,5

Taylor’s uncle testified about an incident that occurred 

approximately four weeks before the shooting. While the uncle and 

 4 In a later recorded audio statement to the lead investigator, Taylor

stated that he was upstairs reading his Bible when he heard a gunshot and 

came downstairs to find his father had been shot. He had no explanation for 

his telling the investigator where to find the firearm, claiming that it was “déjà

vu” or perhaps that he was “seeing things.” Taylor did not testify at trial.

5 This testimony was admitted under the pre-2013 standard for similar 

transaction evidence. See generally Reeves v. State, 294 Ga. 673, 675 n.3 (2) 

(755 SE2d 695) (2014).
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Taylor were at the uncle’s house, Taylor without any warning pulled 

out a pistol and pointed it at his uncle’s head, and then held him at 

gunpoint for about an hour while asking apparently random 

questions.6

In his brief on appeal, Taylor argues only that the evidence was 

circumstantial and that the State failed to exclude every reasonable 

hypothesis save for his guilt, as required by former OCGA § 24-4-6.7

The State does not concede that all the evidence presented was

circumstantial. But we need not decide that point, because even if 

we assume that the evidence presented at trial was entirely 

circumstantial, it nonetheless satisfied the requirements of that 

Code section.

The fact that the evidence of guilt was circumstantial does 

not render it insufficient. But, as a matter of Georgia 

statutory law, to warrant a conviction on circumstantial 

evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent 

with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other 

 6 In his statement to the lead investigator, Taylor denied any 

confrontation with his uncle.

7 Taylor’s 2012 trial took place while the former Evidence Code was still 

in effect, but the relevant provision is now codified as OCGA § 24-14-6 and is 

otherwise unchanged. See Tyler v. State, 311 Ga. 727, 731 n.3 (2) (859 SE2d 

73) (2021).
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reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the 

accused. Not every hypothesis is reasonable, however, 

and it is for the jury to determine whether an alternative 

hypothesis passes muster. Where the jury is authorized 

to find the evidence sufficient to exclude every reasonable 

hypothesis except of the accused’s guilt, this Court will 

not disturb that finding unless it is insupportable as a 

matter of law.

(Citations, footnote, and punctuation omitted.) Anglin v. State, __ 

Ga. __ (1) (863 SE2d 148, 153) (2021). And “[i]t is the role of the jury 

to resolve conflicts in the evidence and to determine the credibility 

of witnesses, and the resolution of such conflicts adversely to the 

defendant does not render the evidence insufficient.” (Citations and 

punctuation omitted.) Jones v. State, 310 Ga. 886, 888 (1) (855 SE2d 

573) (2021).

Here, the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to meet this 

standard. Taylor’s mother told police officers and an EMT that she 

heard a gunshot and saw Taylor standing over Richard with his 

pistol – the murder weapon – in his hand. Moreover, the mother told 

Glen that Taylor “was standing up over [Richard] and he shot him.” 

Other witnesses stated that Taylor went downstairs only minutes 

before the shooting; that shortly after the shooting he emerged from 
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the area where the shooting took place; that after the shooting, he 

was distraught and pacing in the room where the murder weapon 

was eventually found; and that he “took off” when the police arrived.

Taylor made inconsistent statements regarding what had occurred 

that evening. Evidence also was presented of a lengthy, private, and 

apparently unusual discussion between Taylor and Richard the day 

before the shooting. Ballistics evidence indicated that Taylor’s pistol 

fired the fatal shot, and gunshot primer residue was found on 

Taylor’s hands. Finally, Taylor negotiated with the lead investigator

for certain personal items in exchange for revealing the location of 

the murder weapon, which was recovered by the investigator in the 

place Taylor described. The jury was authorized under former 

OCGA § 24-4-6 to find that this evidence excluded every reasonable 

hypothesis save that of Taylor’s guilt.8

In his brief on appeal, Taylor proposes several theories that he 

contends the evidence failed to exclude. For example, he contends 

 8 We no longer routinely consider the issue of sufficiency as a matter of

constitutional due process in non-death penalty cases, when it is not raised by 

an appellant. See Jones, 310 Ga. at 889 n.3 (1).
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the murder could have been committed by a stranger entering the 

locked home or by another family member; or, he claims, Richard

could have committed suicide. He contends that he could have been 

wakened by the gunshot – even though his niece stated that he was 

awake a few minutes before Richard’s murder – and, startled, could 

have picked up the pistol and then concealed it for his mother’s 

safety, thus transferring gunshot residue to his hand and giving him 

knowledge of the murder weapon’s location. But the evidence 

presented at Taylor’s trial was legally sufficient to exclude every 

reasonable hypothesis other than Taylor’s guilt. The jury was 

properly instructed on circumstantial evidence, and “[i]t is apparent 

from the verdict that the jury in this case found the state had 

excluded all reasonable hypotheses except that of guilt.” Reeves v. 

State, 294 Ga. 673, 674-675 (1) (755 SE2d 695) (2014). See also

Jackson v. State, 311 Ga. 626, 630-631 (2) (859 SE2d 46) (2021)

(circumstantial evidence sufficient when witnesses saw appellant 

with handgun near scene of shooting, saw appellant and victim 

fighting, and saw car similar to that owned by appellant speeding 
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away immediately after shooting).

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.