Sneed v. State

── Sneed v. State ── Court: Supreme Court of Georgia Date: April 21, 2026 Category: General NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the opinion published in the Advance Sheets for the Georgia Reports, designated as the “Final Copy,” will replace any prior version on the Court’s website and docket. A bound volume of the Georgia Reports will contain the final and official text of the opinion. In the Supreme Court of Georgia No. S26A0409 Calvin Sneed v. The State On Appeal from the Superior Court of Fulton County No. 17SC151981 Decided: April 21, 2026 LAGRUA, Justice. Appellant Calvin Sneed appeals his convictions for malice murder and other crimes related to the shooting death of Gregory Jones. 1 On appeal, Sneed argues that his convictions should be 1 Jones was shot on February 13, 2017, and died on the morning of February 14, 2017. On May 19, 2017, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Sneed for the following counts: malice murder (Count 1); felony murder predi- cated on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (Count 2); two counts of felony murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a convicted felon (Counts 3 and 4); two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (Counts 5 and 6); possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 7); possession of a firearm by a convicted felon pursuant to OCGA § 16- 11-131 (Count 8); and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon during the commission of another felony pursuant to OCGA § 16-11-133 (Count 9). Sneed was tried from November 14 to 16, 2017, and the jury found him guilty on all counts except Count 6. The trial court sentenced Sneed to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for Count 1; five consecutive years for Count 7; five years for Count 8, to be served concurrently with the sentence for Count 1; and fifteen years for Count 9, to be served consecutively with the sentence for Count 1 and concurrently with the sentence for Count 7, for a total sentence reversed because his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective in two ways—by failing to object when the prosecutor commented on the veracity of a witness during the State’s closing argument, and by failing to object during the State’s closing argument when the prosecutor argued facts not in evidence concerning the trajec- tory of one of the bullets and Jones’s position when he was shot. As an initial matter, because we conclude that the trial court committed certain merger errors, we vacate Sneed’s convic- tions and sentences for possession of a firearm during the com- mission of a felony (Count 7) and possession of a firearm by a con- victed felon pursuant to OCGA § 16-11-131 (Count 8) and remand Sneed’s case for the trial court to correct the sentence summary in the final disposition form. Otherwise, because we see no merit to Sneed’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, we affirm Sneed’s remaining convictions and sentences. The evidence presented at trial showed that, on the night of February 13, 2017, Sneed shot Jones four times in the front yard of the house where Jones lived with three other people: his mother, Antoniette Williams—who was Sneed’s mistress; Jones’s grandmother, Mary Andrews; and Jones’s brother,