The Supreme Court of Georgia (SCOGA) has upheld the murder conviction of Christopher Vargas Zayas, who was convicted of malice murder and a related crime in connection with the shooting death of his girlfriend, Carly Andrews.
The shooting occurred in September 2018, and Zayas was indicted for multiple charges, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, family violence, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, and three counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Zayas was found guilty on all five counts and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
In his appeal, Zayas argued that the circumstantial evidence at trial was insufficient to exclude the alternative hypothesis that the pistol discharged accidentally as Andrews grabbed it. He also argued that his lawyer was ineffective for failing to move to suppress statements he made to investigators before he received Miranda warning.
The Supreme Court, however, affirmed the convictions, concluding that the circumstantial evidence authorized the jury to reject Zayas’s alternative hypothesis as unreasonable, that counsel was not deficient for failing to seek to suppress Zayas’s statements, and that Zayas suffered no prejudice from any error made by the judge in his instructions to the jury.
You can read the court’s full ruling here: s24a0025.pdf (gasupreme.us)