Rivers v. The State

Summary

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Karre Rivers’s convictions for malice murder and related offenses arising from the shooting death of Oshane Scott. The court held that the trial court did not commit plain error by instructing the jury on excessive force in connection with Rivers’s justification and self-defense theory because slight evidence supported the instruction.

Holdings

1. The trial court did not err in giving the excessive-force instruction because at least slight evidence supported it, including evidence that Rivers fired multiple shots and that Scott was shot at least twice after he was on the ground.
2. Rivers failed to establish plain error because he did not show that giving the excessive-force instruction was error that was obvious beyond reasonable dispute.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court plainly erred by instructing the jury that a defendant is not justified in using excessive force while acting in self-defense when the evidence allegedly did not support the instruction.

Disposition

affirmed