Miller v. State

── Miller v. State ── Court: Supreme Court of Georgia Date: June 02, 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. S26A0296 Christopher Alexander Miller v. The State On Appeal from the Superior Court of Peach County No. 25CR053 Decided: June 2, 2026 ELLINGTON, Justice. Appellant Christopher Miller appeals his convictions for malice murder and other crimes in connection with the shooting death of two-year-old Marcus Ball, Jr. 1 On appeal, Miller 1 The crimes occurred on July 20, 2022. Miller, Wontazious Bivins, and Jabari Thomas were indicted by a Peach County grand jury on March 17, 2025, as parties to the crime for malice murder (Count 1), felony murder predicated on aggravated assault (Count 2), two counts of aggravated assault (one for assault against Marcus Ball, Jr., and one for assault against his sister, one- year-old M.B.) (Counts 3 and 4), and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Counts 5 and 6). Miller was tried separately from his co-defendants. After a jury trial that ended on May 1, 2025, Miller was found guilty on all counts of the indictment. On May 2, 2025, the trial court sentenced Miller to life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder, to 20 consecutive years in prison for the aggravated assault of M.B., and to five years in prison on each firearm offense, the first sentence to run consecutively to the life sentence for malice murder and concurrently with the sentence for aggravated assault and the second sentence to run consecutively to both the malice murder and aggravated assault sentences. Miller filed a notice of appeal on May 2, 2025, and his case was docketed in contends that the trial court erred by failing to grant his motion for a directed verdict based upon a fatal variance, that there was insufficient proof of causation, and that the trial court erred by failing to instruct the jury on involuntary manslaughter. For the reasons that follow, we affirm. 1. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the evidence at trial showed the following. In the days and weeks leading up to the night of July 20, 2022, animosity had developed between Miller and Dayquan Williams and his brother, Davonte Howard, at least in part because Miller and Williams were dating the same woman. Williams lived in the Lakeview Apartments in Fort Valley, and one day before the shooting, someone told Miller to go to a street “over there by Lakeview” to see a person known as “Chicago,” who was a friend of Williams’s. Miller did so, and once there, someone shot at him; Miller told the mother of one of his children that he believed that “they was trying to set him up.” In addition, about two weeks earlier, Miller and Howard had a fight at the apartment complex, during which a firearm was discharged. On the night of July 20, 2022, Miller, Jabari Thomas, Wontazious Bivins, and others congregated outside of Building C at the Lakeview Apartments starting about 9:30 p.m.