## Facts

- Bernard William Green argued with his wife, Cynthia Grant, at their home while Grant’s teenage children were present.
- During the argument, the oldest child hit Green on the head with a mop, and Grant threw an empty barbeque bottle at him.
- Shortly afterward, Green stabbed Grant in the back with a knife.
- While waiting for police, Grant told a neighbor that Green had hurt her badly and had stabbed her in front of her children.
- Grant was hospitalized for about a week and received medical treatment, including the pain medication Toradol.
- After Grant had been approved for release from the hospital, she suddenly died.
- The medical evidence showed she died from a bleeding stress ulcer.
- Expert testimony conflicted on causation: the State’s pathologist testified there was a direct relationship between the stabbing, its treatment, and Grant’s death, explaining that the stabbing caused the stress and that Toradol would not have been given but for the stabbing; Green’s expert attributed death to the ulcer (and linked it to Toradol rather than the stab wound).
- Green’s defense at trial was that he did not stab Grant and that, in any event, the stab wound did not cause her death.
- Green was convicted of felony murder and appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, was sufficient for a rational jury to find Green guilty of felony murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
2. Whether Green received ineffective assistance of counsel when trial counsel failed to (a) object to a sequential jury charge that Green argued ran afoul of *Edge v. State*, and (b) request a more specific jury instruction on secondary causation concerning medical treatment (including Toradol) and the fatal stress ulcer.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Green’s felony-murder conviction.
- The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Green committed felony murder.
- Green failed to establish ineffective assistance of counsel under *Strickland v. Washington* because he did not show a reasonable probability of a different result.
- Considering the jury instructions as a whole, the court found them adequate; counsel’s failure to object to the sequencing or to request a more detailed causation charge did not warrant relief.

## Legal Principles

- On sufficiency review, an appellate court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and asks whether a rational jury could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (*Jackson v. Virginia* standard.)
- In homicide prosecutions, causation may be found where the defendant’s act sets in motion events leading to death; medical treatment administered because of the injury ordinarily does not break the causal chain when the evidence supports a direct relationship between the injury, its treatment, and death.
- To prove ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must show both deficient performance and prejudice—i.e., a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the outcome would have been different. (*Strickland v. Washington*.)
- Jury-charge complaints raised through an ineffective-assistance claim are evaluated by reading the charge as a whole, not by isolating particular phrases.
- Although *Edge v. State* disapproved certain sequential homicide instructions that can improperly restrict consideration of voluntary manslaughter, a defendant alleging ineffective assistance for failure to object must still show prejudice under *Strickland*.

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Bernard William Green’s felony-murder conviction for Cynthia Grant’s death, holding that the trial evidence—including eyewitness testimony and the State’s medical proof linking the stabbing, resulting stress, and treatment to the fatal ulcer—was sufficient for the jury to find causation and guilt, and that Green did not meet the prejudice requirement for his ineffective-assistance claims based on the sequential homicide charge and the absence of a more detailed secondary-causation instruction.


Green v. State, 470 S.E.2d 884 (1996)