Taylor v. State

Summary

The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed Taylor’s convictions and sentence, holding that the self-defense instruction, read as a whole, did not improperly shift the burden of disproving justification to him. Because Taylor did not object to the instruction at trial, the court reviewed only for plain error and found none. The court construed the challenged aggravated-assault language as defining the felony that could make justification unavailable, not as requiring Taylor to prove self-defense.