State v. Shepperd

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided September 13, 1984

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1984-09-13

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 201 Ga. App. 224 - Hollis v. State

Relies on State v. Royal · 160 Ga. App. 209 - Jones v. State · 164 Ga. App. 240 - Jolly v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1984-09-13

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently June 2009

15 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Gregory, Justice.

¶1Timothy Lee Shepperd was indicted for murder and convicted of the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter. The Court of Appeals reversed his conviction holding the trial court erred in failing to give Shepperd’s requested charge that where evidence of self-defense is presented the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in self-defense. State v. Royal, 247 Ga. 309 (275 SE2d 646) (1981); Jones v. State, 160 Ga. App. 209(2) (286 SE2d 764) (1981); Jolly v. State, 164 Ga. App. 240(2) (296 SE2d 784) (1982). For the reasons given in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, we agree.

¶2Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur, except Marshall, P. J., and Weltner, J., who dissent.