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Final Copy 289 Ga. 583 S10G1633. CANTERA v. THE STATE. MELTON, Justice. In Cantera v. State, 304 Ga. App. 289 (696 SE2d 354) (2010), the Court of
Appeals affirmed Vincent Cantera's convictions for aggravated assault, concealing the death of another, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. 1 With respect to the issue relevant to the granted petition for certiorari, the Court of Appeals also held that the trial court did not err in failing to charge the jury on simple assault as an essential element of the offense of aggravated assault in this case. Id. at 293 (3). We granted review to determine

Although the jury had also found Cantera guilty of voluntary manslaughter and an additional count of possession of a firearm in connection with the voluntary manslaughter count, the trial court did not enter judgments on these counts, and, on appeal, the State conceded that "no evidence of the offense of voluntary manslaughter" had been presented to the jury. Cantera, supra, 304 Ga. App. at 291 (1). Accordingly, the Court of Appeals determined that "any issues concerning [the voluntary manslaughter and related possession of a firearm] counts of the indictment [were] moot and [would] not be considered. [Cit.]" Funderburk v. State, 276 Ga. 554, 555 (1) (580 SE2d 234) (2003). The propriety of this ruling is not at issue in the present appeal.
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whether a jury instruction on aggravated assault must include an instruction on simple assault. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that a charge on simple assault is not required in every case involving aggravated assault, and particularly was not required to be given under the circumstances of this case. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, the record reveals that Cantera shot the victim, Jose Luis Guerrero, and the victim fled. Cantera chased the victim, and when he caught up to him, he shot him three more times as the victim begged for his life, killing him. On August 14, 2000, Cantera told his son, Efrain Cantera, that he had shot and killed Guerrero. That evening, Cantera drove Efrain and another man to an Echols County hunting property which Cantera leased, where, at gunpoint, he forced Efrain and the other man to bury the victim.

The evidence outlined above was sufficient to enable a rational trier of fact to find Cantera guilty of all the crimes for which he was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979).
2. This Court has previously held that "[t]here is no merit in [the]
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contention that a charge on simple assault (cit.) must be given in order to complete the definition of aggravated assault (cit.)" ((emphasis supplied) Sutton v. State, 245 Ga. 192, 193 (2) (264 SE2d 184) (1980)), and that there is no harmful error in failing to charge on simple assault when "evidence shows that the perpetrator[ ] [of the aggravated assault acted] intentionally [in shooting the victim] . . . [and] [n]either negligence nor reckless conduct [is] an issue in th[e] case." Howard v. State, 288 Ga. 741, 743 (2) (707 SE2d 80) (2011). In this connection, under this Court's decision in Howard, supra, there could be no harmful error from the trial court's failure to charge the jury on simple assault in the instant case, as the undisputed evidence shows that Cantera intentionally shot the victim, wounding him, and then chased the victim down and intentionally shot him three more times as he begged for his life. Id. "Neither negligence nor reckless conduct was an issue in this case and, thus, any error in the charge would not have affected the outcome of the case." (Citation omitted.) Id. In Howard, however, this Court specifically declined to "address this Court's

prior holding [in Sutton, supra,] that "(t)here is no merit in (the) contention that a charge on simple assault ([cit.]) must be given in order to complete the definition of aggravated assault ([cit.])." Id. at 743-744 (2). Today, we address
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that holding, and determine that, as explained more fully below, the trial court did not commit any error at all by failing to instruct the jury on simple assault in connection with its charge on aggravated assault in this case. We do not hold, however, that a charge on simple assault would never be necessary in a case involving aggravated assault. Indeed, "[t]he jury must be given `an appropriate instruction as to the law on each substantive point or issue involved in the case'" ((citation and punctuation omitted) Chase v. State, 277 Ga. 636, 639 (2) (592 SE2d 656) (2004)), and there are certainly circumstances under which simple assault would constitute a substantive point or issue in an aggravated assault case. "A person commits the offense of simple assault when he or she either . . . [a]ttempts to commit a violent injury to the person of another[,] or . . . [c]ommits an act which places another in reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury" (OCGA

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