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Final Copy 289 Ga. 675

S11A0767. ROGERS v. THE STATE.

CARLEY, Presiding Justice.

After a jury trial, Appellant Caesar Octavious Rogers was found guilty of malice murder, burglary, possession of a firearm during commission of a felony, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The trial court entered judgments of conviction and sentenced Appellant to life imprisonment for malice murder, a concurrent 20-year term for burglary, a five-year consecutive term for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and a concurrent five-year term for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Appellant appeals after the denial of a motion for new trial.*

The crimes occurred on October 13, 2008, and the grand jury returned the indictment on November 9, 2009. The jury found Appellant guilty on March 3, 2010, and, on that same day, the trial court entered the judgments of conviction and sentences. The motion for new trial was filed on March 15, 2010, amended on December 6, 2010, and denied on December 13, 2010. Appellant filed the notice of appeal on January 7, 2011. The case was docketed in this Court for the April 2011 term and submitted for decision on the briefs.
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1. Construed most strongly in support of the verdicts, the evidence shows that on October 13, 2008, Appellant Caesar Octavious Rogers and others were watching a group of men play checkers. The victim, Clayton Bernard Carter, was also present and approached Appellant with the purpose of buying drugs. Appellant refused to make the sale because the victim had an unpaid debt for past drug purchases. A heated argument ensued between Appellant and the victim that lasted several minutes. The verbal altercation ended with the victim leaving the location to retrieve a .38 caliber revolver from his residence. The victim returned to the location with the revolver and fired it one or two times into the air. Appellant called someone on his cell phone and said to "bring that," and a witness who overheard the telephone call believed that Appellant meant to bring a gun. Shortly after the above described altercation, the victim returned home and Appellant was observed approaching the victim's residence with his hands concealed in his jacket. Appellant walked down the side of the victim's residence, peeked around, and then doubled back. Minutes later the victim's neighbor heard a gunshot coming from the vicinity of the victim's residence.

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Another neighbor witnessed Appellant run down an alley behind the residence and get into the back seat of a waiting car that drove away from the scene. Mary Alice Rawls lived with the victim at the time of the shooting and returned home from work that day to find him shot dead and lying on the bedroom floor. She called 911. The victim was fatally shot in the neck. The bullet which killed him was recovered and was determined to be a .40 caliber projectile, a type of bullet that could not have been discharged from the revolver that the victim was seen carrying earlier in the day. The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find Appellant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the crimes for which he was convicted. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979). 2. The trial court rejected a timely written request by Appellant to charge the jury on unlawful act involuntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense of the crime of murder. Appellant contends on appeal that rejection of his requested instruction was reversible error. A person commits the offense of involuntary manslaughter in the commission of an unlawful act when he causes the death of another human being without any intention to do so by the commission of an unlawful act other than a felony.

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OCGA

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