Jackson v. State, A96A1653
| Decision Date | 29 August 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. A96A1653,A96A1653 |
| Citation | 475 S.E.2d 680,222 Ga.App. 633 |
| Parties | JACKSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Kathleen J. Anderson, Athens, for appellant.
Timothy G. Madison, District Attorney, for appellee.
Appellant Willie "Frog" Jackson challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his Barrow County conviction for the offense of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The evidence before this Court demonstrates that at the time of the offense, the appellant, a convicted felon, was the manager of a small bar in Bethlehem, Georgia. A woman the appellant knew came into the bar, along with her brother and her current boyfriend. The group had been at the bar for approximately an hour when a verbal altercation broke out between the woman and the appellant which resulted in the appellant telling the group to leave the bar; they complied. However, the appellant followed the group out into the parking lot. The verbal altercation turned physical with the appellant suffering a black eye; no weapons were involved.
Thereafter, although the fight was over, the appellant went back inside the club and got a double-barrel shotgun that appellant kept loaded behind the bar. An employee who had remained inside the bar begged the appellant to "let it go." The appellant replied that he had "told them time and time again not to come up here, so [he will] just do what [he has] to do." Appellant went back outside with the shotgun and pointed it at the group who had, by this time, gotten into their car and made it to the end of the driveway of the club. As appellant pulled the trigger, the employee, who had followed behind him, hit the shotgun and caused it to discharge into the air. The woman and her companions drove to a local resident's home and called the police.
At trial, appellant claimed justification on the basis that his bar had been plagued with drug dealers. Appellant testified that the woman and her companions were drug dealers who attacked him outside the bar when appellant asked them to leave. Appellant testified that the double-barrel shotgun belonged to his brother who had left it in the bar only the week before, and that although he had never called the police prior to this incident, appellant felt there was no other method to rid himself of drug dealers but to get the shotgun. With regard to the fight, appellant testified that although the drug dealers "had done to me what they was going to do to me before I went into the club," appellant went back into the club and returned with the double-barrel shotgun; that no one chased him into the bar; and that the alleged drug dealers were leaving the premises when he got...
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