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In the Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided: February 17, 2026

S26A0423. JONES v. THE STATE.

WARREN, Presiding Justice.

Appellant Willie Lee Jones was convicted of felony murder

based on aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the

commission of a felony in connection with the shooting death of

Benjamin Francis. 1 Jones’s sole claim on appeal is that the evidence

1 Francis was killed on May 10, 2023.In June 2024, a Gwinnett County
grand jury indicted Jones for malice murder, two counts of felony murder
(based on aggravated assault and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon),
aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony,
and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Michael Davis was also
indicted for malice murder and other crimes related to Francis’s killing. Jones
was tried alone from November 4 to 7, 2024. (The record does not indicate
what happened to the charges against Davis; his case is not part of this appeal.)
The jury found Jones not guilty of malice murder but guilty of the remaining
charges. The trial court sentenced him to serve life in prison for felony murder
based on aggravated assault and five consecutive years for possession of a
firearm during the commission of a felony. The remaining guilty verdicts were
vacated or merged. See Dixon v. State, 302 Ga. 691, 697 (2017). Jones filed a
timely motion for new trial, which he later amended. The trial court denied
the motion on October 14, 2025. Jones filed a timely notice of appeal, and the
case was docketed to the term of this Court beginning in December 2025 and
presented at his trial was not sufficient as a matter of constitutional

due process to support those convictions.2 As discussed below, that

claim fails, so we affirm.

(a) In evaluating the constitutional sufficiency of the evidence,

we view all of the evidence presented at trial in the light most

favorable to the verdicts and consider whether any rational juror

could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of

the crimes of which he was convicted. See Jackson v. Virginia, 443

US 307, 319 (1979). “[I]t is the jury’s role to determine the credibility

of the witnesses and to resolve any conflicts or inconsistencies in the

evidence,” Williams v. State, 316 Ga. 147, 151 (2023) (quotation

marks omitted), meaning that “this Court does not reweigh the

evidence or resolve conflicting testimony,” Gobert v. State, 311 Ga.

305, 308 (2021) (quotation marks omitted).

submitted for a decision on the briefs.

2 Jones also contends that the evidence was not sufficient to support the

counts of felony murder based on possession of a firearm by a convicted felon,
aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. But Jones
was not sentenced for those crimes, so his claims regarding them are moot.
See, e.g., Ellington v. State, 314 Ga. 335, 340 (2022).
2
Viewed in this light, the evidence presented at Jones’s trial

showed the following. At 4:39 p.m. on May 10, 2023, Jones shot

Francis five times, killing him, on a sidewalk of Jimmy Carter

Boulevard in Norcross. Witnesses told responding investigators

that Jones, who was partially paralyzed and used a wheelchair,

went down the road just after the shooting, and investigators

apprehended him soon after. There was blood on his shirt, and he

said that “someone had cut him on the neck,” but investigators did

not see any such injury. Investigators found seven shell casings at

the scene of the shooting, a 9mm pistol in a nearby sewer drain, and

a utility knife on the ground near Francis.

Investigators later interviewed Jones; the interview was video-

recorded and played for the jury at trial. Jones told investigators

the following. Shortly before the shooting, he was at a convenience

store on Jimmy Carter Boulevard “minding [his] business,

panhandling,” when Francis, whom he had never seen before, “came

up around the corner, grabbed [him] by [his] neck,” “put a knife

behind [his] neck,” and said, “[G]ive me your money.” Francis then

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threw Jones on the ground and “beat” him. Jones screamed for help,

and when Francis fled, Jones got back in his wheelchair and tried to

“chase him down.” Jones then heard gunshots, but he did not have

a gun and did not know who fired. He fled because the gunshots

“startled” him. When an investigator told Jones that there was

evidence showing that Jones shot Francis, Jones responded that

Francis “tried to kill [him].”

Investigators obtained surveillance videos from the

convenience store and other nearby businesses, which showed the

following. Around 4:30 p.m. on the day of the shooting, Francis

approached Jones, threw him to the ground, held his wheelchair on

top of him, and used a utility knife to try to cut a pouch that was

hanging around Jones’s neck. Francis walked away from Jones at

4:31 p.m. Jones then got back in his wheelchair, spoke to a woman

who witnessed the attack, and used her cell phone. At 4:37 p.m., a

man (who investigators later determined was Michael Davis)

arrived, spoke to Jones and the woman, and placed something on

Jones’s lap. Davis and the woman then walked down the sidewalk,

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where Francis was standing, while Jones traveled through a parking

lot and approached Francis from the other side. It appears that

Jones and Francis argued for several seconds. At 4:39 p.m., Francis

began to walk away from Jones; Jones raised his arm, as if shooting

toward Francis; Francis ran toward Jones; and Francis fell on top of

Jones. Jones pushed Francis away and fled in his wheelchair, as

Davis and the woman ran away.

The medical examiner who performed Francis’s autopsy

concluded that he had been shot at least five times: once in the back,

once in the back of the thigh, once in the chest, and twice in the left

arm.3 The examiner determined that each shot was fired from at

least three feet away, and she collected from Francis’s body three

bullets and a bullet fragment. A firearms examiner concluded that

the bullets and bullet fragment, as well as the seven 9mm shell

casings found at the crime scene, were fired from the 9mm pistol

that was found in the sewer drain. In addition, Francis’s blood

3 On cross-examination, the medical examiner testified that at least one

of Francis’s injuries could have been consistent with him “bending over
approaching” Jones.
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tested positive for methamphetamine, which, the medical examiner

testified, “can make” a person “aggressive.”

Jones testified at trial that after Francis attacked him at the

convenience store and “cut [him] across the neck” and on his “face,”

Jones “approached” Francis and asked Francis why he “put[] his

hands on” Jones. They argued, and Francis said he was “fixing to

come back and kill [Jones].” Jones “fear[ed] for [his] life,” so he

“snatched a pistol from “Davis’[s] hip.” Francis, who still had a

knife, “turned back around and started running at [Jones],” and

Jones shot. On cross-examination, Jones admitted that the attack

at the convenience store occurred several minutes before Jones shot;

that when Jones raised the pistol, Francis had his back to Jones and

was walking away; and that Francis came back toward Jones after

Jones began shooting.

(b) Jones contends that the evidence presented at trial was not

sufficient as a matter of constitutional due process because the State

failed to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt his claim of self-

defense. Specifically, Jones argues that he was justified in shooting

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Francis because the evidence showed that Francis, while under the

influence of methamphetamine, had attacked Jones at the

convenience store and because Jones testified on direct examination

that when he later approached Francis, Francis threatened to kill

Jones and ran toward him with a utility knife. This claim fails.

The evidence was sufficient to authorize the jury to conclude

that at the time of the shooting, Jones did not reasonably believe

that deadly force was necessary to defend himself because Francis

did not present an “imminent use of unlawful force” that could cause

“death or great bodily injury.” OCGA § 16-3-21(a) (providing, in

pertinent part, that a person is justified in using deadly force if he

“reasonably believes that such … force is necessary to defend

himself” against the “imminent use of unlawful force” and “to

prevent death or great bodily injury to himself”). In this respect, the

evidence allowed the jury to reasonably infer that after Francis’s

attack on Jones at the convenience store ended and Francis had

walked down the sidewalk, Jones called Davis, who soon arrived at

the store and gave Jones a pistol. Jones then traveled through a

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nearby parking lot and approached Francis; they argued; and about

eight minutes after the convenience-store attack, Jones shot Francis

at least five times. He then fled the scene and initially lied to

investigators, claiming that he did not know who fired the shots.

And although Jones points to his testimony on direct examination

that Francis said he was “fixing to come back and kill [Jones]” and

“started running at [Jones]” before Jones shot, Jones admitted on

cross-examination that when he raised the pistol, Francis was

walking away and only came back toward Jones after Jones began

shooting. See Williams, 316 Ga. at 150 (“It is the role of the jury to

evaluate the evidence and, when doing so, the jury is free to reject

any evidence in support of a justification defense and to accept the

evidence that the shooting was not done in self-defense.” (cleaned

up)).

In sum, the jury was authorized to determine that Jones did

not reasonably believe that Francis posed any imminent threat of

harm to him when he shot, such that Jones killed Francis in

retaliation rather than in self-defense. Accordingly, the evidence

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presented at trial was constitutionally sufficient to authorize a

rational jury to reject Jones’s claim of self-defense and to find him

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of felony murder based on

aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the

commission of that felony. See OCGA § 16-3-21(a); Reddick v. State,

321 Ga. 73, 79 (2025) (concluding that the evidence, which allowed

the jury to infer that the defendant shot the victim while he was

retreating, was constitutionally sufficient to disprove the

defendant’s justification defense and to authorize the jury to find

him guilty of felony murder based on aggravated assault and

possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony); Williams,

316 Ga. at 150–51 (holding that the evidence, which included a video

recording showing that the victim was walking away from the

defendant when the defendant shot, authorized the jury to reject the

defendant’s claim of self-defense, and noting that even though there

was evidence that the victim had aimed a gun at the defendant while

they were inside an apartment, the jury could have concluded that

the defendant “did not reasonably believe that [the victim] posed any

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imminent threat of harm to him when he shot” the victim later in a

parking lot); Gobert, 311 Ga. at 309 (determining that the evidence,

which showed that the victim, who was part of a group that had been

in a physical fight with the defendant’s step-daughter, was trying to

flee when the defendant shot him, was constitutionally sufficient for

the jury to reject the defendant’s justification defense and to find

him guilty of felony murder based on aggravated assault because he

and his step-daughter were not “in any danger or any imminent

threat of harm” at the time of the shooting).

Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.