Smith v. Georgia
Annotate this CaseIn February 2010, there was a fight at a nightclub in Albany, Georgia, followed by a shooting in a nearby parking lot. A patron of the club, LeSheldon Stanford, was killed in the shooting, and a security guard for the club, George Ferguson, was wounded. Three years later, Shanard Smith, Anthony Hawkins, and Shuntavious Seay were tried together on charges arising from the fight and the shooting, and a jury found them guilty of murder and other crimes. They appealed. With respect to Smith, the Georgia Supreme Court found no reversible error and affirm his convictions. As to Hawkins and Seay, the Court affirmed their convictions for aggravated assault, which were based on their participation in the fight inside the club. The Court reversed, however, their convictions for murder because the evidence at trial was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they were parties to the shooting in the parking lot outside the club.
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