Court Opinion

ID: 9556985
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 13:03:51.969887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:50.114720
License: Public Domain

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court
 Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the
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 official text of the opinion.

In the Supreme Court of Georgia

                                                   Decided: August 21, 2023

                        S23A0607. OWENS v. THE STATE.

        WARREN, Justice.

       In October 2015, Norris Owens was convicted of felony murder

based on possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer and

other crimes in connection with the shooting death of Randolph

Williamson. On appeal, Owens argues that the trial court erred by

not merging the count for felony murder based on unlawful

possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer into the

voluntary manslaughter verdict. Seeing no error, we affirm. 1

       1 Williamson was killed on October 18, 2015.    On March 16, 2016, a
Fulton County grand jury indicted Owens on six counts: malice murder; felony
murder based on aggravated assault; felony murder based on possession of a
firearm by a first-offender probationer; aggravated assault with a deadly
weapon; possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; and
possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer. At a trial in October
2017, the jury found Owens guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary
manslaughter on the malice murder count and guilty on all other counts. At
sentencing, the felony murder verdict based on aggravated assault was vacated
      1. As relevant to Owens’s enumeration on appeal, the evidence

presented at trial showed the following.             On October 18, 2015,

Owens, a first-offender probationer, was socializing with friends in

the parking lot of an apartment complex. Tucked into Owens’s

waistband was a loaded 9mm handgun he had acquired two weeks

earlier. Williamson drove into the parking lot and got out of the car

in front of Owens with his hands in his pants. In front of several

onlookers, Williamson challenged Owens to a fistfight and pulled his

hand out of his pants.           Owens pulled out his gun and shot

Williamson twice, once in the head and once in the chest, killing him.

      2.   As noted in footnote 1 above, Owens was found guilty of

by operation of law, and although the trial court purported to merge the
voluntary manslaughter verdict into the remaining felony murder conviction,
the voluntary manslaughter count was actually vacated by operation of law.
See Crayton v. State, 298 Ga. 792, 800-801 (784 SE2d 343) (2016). The trial
court merged the count for possession of a firearm by a first-offender
probationer into the related count of felony murder and sentenced Owens to
serve life in prison for felony murder based on possession of a firearm, 20 years
to run concurrently for aggravated assault, and 5 years to run consecutively
for possession of a firearm during a felony. With new counsel, Owens timely
moved for a new trial, which he later amended. In April 2021, after an
evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Owens’s motion for new trial as
amended. Owens filed a timely notice of appeal. The case was docketed to the
April 2023 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

                                       2
voluntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of malice murder, but

that verdict was vacated by operation of law because the trial court

sentenced Owens for felony murder based on possession of a firearm

by a first-offender probationer. Owens contends that this was error,

and that the trial court should have instead merged the felony

murder verdict into the voluntary manslaughter verdict and

sentenced him for voluntary manslaughter.           Owens’s contention

fails.

         In Edge v. State, 261 Ga. 865 (414 SE2d 463) (1992), this Court

adopted a “modified” merger rule that “precludes a felony murder

conviction only where it would prevent an otherwise warranted

verdict of voluntary manslaughter.” Id. at 867. We explained:

         [I]f there is but one assault and that assault could form
         the basis of either felony murder or voluntary
         manslaughter, a verdict of felony murder may not be
         returned if the jury finds that the assault is mitigated by
         provocation and passion. To hold otherwise would
         eliminate voluntary manslaughter as a separate form of
         homicide since, in that event, every voluntary
         manslaughter would also be a felony murder.

Id. at 866.

                                     3
     We have extended the modified merger rule to situations in

which “the felony murder is premised on another underlying felony

that is equally integral to the homicide and susceptible of mitigation

by the sort of provocation and passion that voluntary manslaughter

involves.” See Griggs v. State, 304 Ga. 806, 808 (822 SE2d 246)

(2018) (noting that this Court has extended the modified merger rule

in past cases, but declining to extend Edge in that case) (citation and

punctuation omitted). See also, e.g., Sanders v. State, 281 Ga. 36

(2006) (extending Edge to aggravated battery and arson). But we

have explained that the modified merger rule does not apply “‘if the

underlying felony is independent of the killing itself.’” Griggs, 304

Ga. at 808 (citing Edge, 261 Ga. at 867 n.3). Thus, this Court

“repeatedly has declined to extend the modified merger rule of Edge

to felony murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a convicted

felon.” Id. See also Sims v. State, 265 Ga. 35, 36 (453 SE2d 33)

(1995) (first deciding this question). 2

     2 Owens makes no argument that we should treat possession of a firearm

by a first-offender probationer differently than possession of a firearm by a

                                     4
      Owens acknowledges this precedent, but argues that we should

nevertheless extend Edge to apply here, citing Ford v. State, 262 Ga.

602 (423 SE2d 255) (1992). But that would require us to overrule

almost three decades of consistent precedent, and Owens does not

offer a stare decisis argument that persuades us to do so.                 See

Crayton v. State, 298 Ga. 792, 800-801 (784 SE2d 343) (2016)

(declining to overrule this Court’s holdings “for the past two decades

that the modified merger rule announced in Edge is inapplicable to

felony murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a convicted

felon”).   We thus affirm Owens’s conviction for felony murder

predicated on possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer.

      Judgement affirmed. All the Justices concur.

convicted felon, and we see no reason to do so here. He also does not argue that
he
      came into the unlawful possession of a firearm only “as the result
      of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious
      provocation sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable
      person,” OCGA § 16-5-2 (a), such that his possession could be said
      to be mitigat[ed] by the sort of provocation and passion that
      voluntary manslaughter involves.
Griggs, 304 Ga. at 808-809 (citation and punctuation omitted). Indeed, the
evidence shows that Owens acquired the gun that he brought to the parking
lot and used in the shooting two weeks before his altercation with Williamson.
                                       5