## Facts

- Raymond F. Everritt owned and operated a service station in Shellman, Georgia, and, facing financial problems, arranged for James McDuffie to burn it to obtain insurance proceeds, agreeing to pay $5,000.
- In June 1992, McDuffie and his teenage grandson, Jamie Weeks, attempted to burn the station with an incendiary device, but the attempt failed.
- McDuffie then recruited Roosevelt Cox, promising Cox $1,500; about two weeks later, McDuffie and Cox successfully burned the station using an accelerant.
- Cox later told others that Everritt owed him $1,500 for the arson and that he had not been paid; McDuffie expressed concern that Cox would talk.
- In September 1992, months after the arson, McDuffie lured Cox to McDuffie’s shop and killed him with an axe; Weeks helped dispose of Cox’s body.
- In March 1993, Everritt’s insurance claim was settled for $123,065.
- Nearly nine years later, Everritt, McDuffie, and Weeks were indicted for Cox’s malice murder; McDuffie died before trial, and Weeks testified for the State under a plea agreement.
- A jury convicted Everritt of murder and he received a life sentence; the trial court denied his motion for a directed verdict of acquittal based on insufficiency of the evidence.

## Issues

1. Whether a participant in a conspiracy to commit arson can be held criminally liable for a co-conspirator’s later murder of another participant committed months after the arson to keep the arson conspiracy secret.
2. Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to prove that the murder was committed in furtherance of, and as a natural and probable consequence of, the arson conspiracy such that it was reasonably foreseeable to Everritt.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Georgia reversed Everritt’s murder conviction and life sentence.
- The court held the evidence insufficient to show that Cox’s murder was a natural and probable consequence of the arson conspiracy or reasonably foreseeable to Everritt.
- The court concluded there was no evidence of an agreement to murder Cox and the State’s derivative-liability theory failed as a matter of law.
- Because the evidence did not support guilt beyond a reasonable doubt under conspiracy or party-to-a-crime principles, the trial court erred in denying a directed verdict of acquittal.

## Legal Principles

- A conspirator may be held liable for crimes committed by a co-conspirator only when the act is committed in furtherance of the conspiracy and is a natural and probable consequence of the unlawful agreement.
- Derivative liability requires reasonable foreseeability; participation in one unlawful scheme does not create automatic liability for all later crimes by co-conspirators.
- A later “cover-up” offense is not imputable to all conspirators merely because it relates to secrecy; the connection must satisfy furtherance and natural-and-probable-consequence limits.
- When the State’s evidence, viewed most favorably to the verdict, fails to establish the required legal connection for vicarious liability, a directed verdict of acquittal is required.

## Conclusion

The Georgia Supreme Court reversed Everritt’s murder conviction because the State proved, at most, an arson-for-insurance conspiracy, and the subsequent axe killing of a participant months later was not shown to be in furtherance of that conspiracy or a reasonably foreseeable, natural, and probable consequence attributable to Everritt.


Everritt v. State, 277 Ga. 457, 588 S.E.2d 691 (Ga. 2003)