Peavy v. State: Clarifying Edge Non-Sequential Jury Practice, Rule 702 Relevance-First Exclusion, and the Narrow Scope of Repugnant Verdicts

1. Introduction

In Peavy v. State (Supreme Court of Georgia, May 5, 2026), Ja’Mychael Quintrez Peavy appealed his convictions for felony murder and related offenses arising from the workplace shooting death of his coworker, Hamilton Darwin, after a dispute escalated into gunfire.

The appeal presented three central issues:

  1. Whether the verdict form and associated jury instructions violated Edge v. State, 261 Ga. 865 (1992) by functioning as an improper “sequential” charge (and whether the form was misleading as to voluntary manslaughter being a lesser alternative to both malice and felony murder).
  2. Whether the trial court improperly excluded defense expert testimony supporting justification under OCGA § 24-7-702 (Rule 702/Daubert), and whether exclusion violated the constitutional right to present a complete defense.
  3. Whether the guilty verdicts for felony murder and aggravated assault were repugnant given the jury’s acquittal on one of the firearm-possession counts.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Court affirmed. It held that:

  • There was no plain error under Edge: listing voluntary manslaughter after indicted counts and telling jurors they could consider offenses “in any order” did not require unanimity on greater offenses before considering the lesser.
  • The trial court did not abuse its discretion under Rule 702 in excluding most of the proposed defensive-tactics expert testimony as irrelevant/unhelpful; and no plain constitutional error occurred.
  • The verdicts were not repugnant: the record did not transparently show affirmative jury findings that could not logically coexist; at most the verdicts were inconsistent, which is generally tolerated.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

(i) Lesser-included offenses, “sequential” charging, and verdict forms

  • Edge v. State, 261 Ga. 865 (1992):

    Edge condemned charges requiring the jury to consider voluntary manslaughter only after finding the defendant not guilty of both malice murder and felony murder. In Peavy, the Court emphasized that the operative problem is not the placement of options on a verdict form, but an instruction that makes consideration of the lesser offense contingent on unanimous acquittal of the greater offense(s).

  • Stewart v. State, 311 Ga. 471 (2021):

    Quoted for the modern statement of the Edge principle: the error is instructing that the lesser may be considered “only if” the jury first unanimously finds not guilty on the indicted greater offense. Peavy uses Stewart to frame the controlling rule and then finds it unsatisfied by this record.

  • Morris v. State, 303 Ga. 192 (2018) and Van v. State, 294 Ga. 464 (2014):

    These decisions supply the practical boundary: there is “no exact formula,” and merely listing malice murder, felony murder, and voluntary manslaughter in a particular order does not create reversible error. Peavy relies on them to reject the premise that the jury must be guided to consider voluntary manslaughter first, or that listing it last is inherently misleading.

  • Cheddersingh v. State, 290 Ga. 680 (2012), Locklear v. State, 317 Ga. 115 (2023), Johnson v. State, 300 Ga. 665 (2017):

    These cases support two key points: (1) a verdict form is treated as part of the jury charge; and (2) challenged instructions are evaluated “as a whole” to determine whether the jury was reasonably likely to be misled. Using that lens, the Court held the instructions clearly told jurors that sufficient provocation/passion would authorize voluntary manslaughter instead of malice or felony murder.

  • State v. Owens, 312 Ga. 212 (2021):

    Used for plain-error framing and also for the instruction-as-a-whole approach (including verdict forms) and the limitations on probing jury deliberations (relevant again in the repugnant-verdict analysis).

(ii) Plain-error review of unpreserved jury-charge and constitutional claims

  • OCGA § 17-8-58 and Cheddersingh v. State, 290 Ga. 680 (2012):

    Establish that failure to object to a jury charge/verdict form limits review to plain error.

  • State v. Owens, 312 Ga. 212 (2021):

    Provides the four-prong plain-error test (obviousness, outcome effect, and impact on fairness/integrity).

  • OCGA § 24-1-103(d) and Wood v. State, 320 Ga. 466 (2024):

    Applied to Peavy’s newly raised “complete defense” constitutional theory; unpreserved, so plain-error review applies.

  • Sconyers v. State, 318 Ga. 855 (2024):

    Quoted to define “obvious” error for plain-error purposes (must be plain under controlling precedent or unequivocally clear statutory/rule text).

(iii) Expert evidence gatekeeping under Rule 702/Daubert

  • OCGA § 24-7-702(b) (as amended effective July 1, 2022) and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 US 579 (1993):

    The Court treats criminal expert admissibility as governed by federal-style Rule 702 and Daubert principles: the trial court must act as gatekeeper for relevance and reliability.

  • Dubois v. Brantley, 297 Ga. 575 (2015):

    Confirms Georgia’s use of Daubert’s gatekeeping framework.

  • United States v. Frazier, 387 F3d 1244 (11th Cir. 2004) and Scapa Dryer Fabrics, Inc. v. Knight, 299 Ga. 286 (2016):

    Provide the three-part structure (qualification, reliability, helpfulness) and place the burden on the proponent to establish admissibility.

  • Miller v. Golden Peanut Co., LLC, 317 Ga. 22 (2023):

    Supplies the abuse-of-discretion standard and reinforces that Georgia courts may look to federal appellate interpretations because the Georgia and federal rules are identical.

  • Prosper v. Martin, 989 F3d 1242 (11th Cir. 2021) and Daubert:

    Used to emphasize that “helpfulness” is anchored in relevance: if it does not “fit” an issue for the jury, it is non-helpful and excludable.

  • McDowell v. Brown, 392 F3d 1283 (11th Cir. 2004):

    Reinforces the “fit” requirement—expert testimony must have a justified relationship to the pertinent facts.

  • Kilpatrick v. State, 308 Ga. 194 (2020):

    A Georgia criminal case illustrating that expert testimony about generalized human responses/use-of-force topics can be excluded when not beyond the jury’s understanding; Peavy uses it by analogy to treat key issues as within lay common sense on this record.

  • U.S. v. Hall, 165 F3d 1095 (7th Cir. 1999) and Walker v. Spina, 359 FSupp3d 1054 (D. N.M. 2019):

    Support the proposition that if testimony fails the relevance/helpfulness prong, the court need not conduct a separate on-the-record reliability inquiry—avoiding a “needless exercise.”

  • Suggs v. State, 310 Ga. 762 (2021) and Soto v. State, 303 Ga. 517 (2018):

    Emphasize the appellant’s burden to show error from the record and the Court’s refusal to comb the record to supply missing support for claims.

(iv) Constitutional right to present a complete defense

  • Wood v. State, 320 Ga. 466 (2024), State v. Burns, 306 Ga. 117 (2019), United States v. Scheffer, 523 US 303 (1998):

    These authorities frame the principle that defendants may present relevant evidence, but evidentiary rules may impose reasonable restrictions so long as they are not arbitrary or disproportionate. Peavy uses them to hold that applying Rule 702 to exclude non-helpful expert testimony does not (without more) deny a complete defense.

(v) Repugnant vs. inconsistent verdicts

  • Montgomery v. State, 323 Ga. 119 (2025):

    Provides the definition: repugnancy exists where the record shows the jury made affirmative findings that cannot logically or legally coexist; truly repugnant guilty verdicts must be vacated.

  • State v. Owens, 312 Ga. 212 (2021) and Feder v. State, 319 Ga. 66 (2024):

    Reinforce the principle that courts do not inquire into the jury’s deliberations and cannot speculate whether inconsistencies arise from compromise, mistake, or lenity.

  • Guajardo v. State, 290 Ga. 172 (2011):

    Supplies the “rare instance” formulation: repugnancy is reserved for cases where the appellate record makes the jury’s rationale transparent.

  • McElrath v. Georgia, 601 US 87 (2024) and Ward v. State, 318 Ga. 884 (2024):

    The Court notes but does not revisit Georgia’s repugnant-verdict doctrine in light of McElrath, because neither party asked it to do so and it declined to address the issue.

B. Legal Reasoning

(i) No Edge error: “non-sequential” means no unanimity-gating

The Court rejects Peavy’s core assumption that Edge requires juries to deliberate in a particular order (e.g., consider voluntary manslaughter first) or that placing voluntary manslaughter at the bottom of the verdict form is inherently suspect. The decisive question is whether the court’s instructions required jurors to reach a unanimous verdict on the greater offenses before considering the lesser.

Here, the verdict form’s layout (including the “OR” separation) and the instruction that offenses could be considered “in any order” did not impose a unanimity-gate. More importantly, the charge expressly told the jury that if it found sufficient provocation and passion, it could not return guilty verdicts for malice or felony murder but would be authorized to return guilty of voluntary manslaughter. Evaluated “as a whole,” the jury was correctly instructed on voluntary manslaughter as an alternative to both murder theories.

(ii) Expert exclusion under Rule 702: relevance/helpfulness “fit” comes first

The Court treats the trial judge’s ruling as a classic Rule 702 helpfulness determination: testimony about defensive tactics and training did not “fit” because there was no evidence Peavy had such training, and other proffered topics (as described by the trial court) were within lay common sense for assessing justification under the case facts.

The Court also makes an important methodological point: because the State’s motion challenged relevance/helpfulness rather than reliability, and the trial court excluded on relevance/helpfulness grounds, an explicit reliability analysis was not required.

(iii) “Complete defense” claim fails under plain-error review

Because Peavy did not raise a constitutional objection at trial, he had to show plain error. The Court reasoned that applying Rule 702 to exclude non-helpful expert testimony is a paradigmatic “reasonable restriction,” not an arbitrary or disproportionate rule that bars a defense. With no controlling precedent showing such a Rule 702 ruling is clearly unconstitutional, Peavy could not establish “clear or obvious” error.

(iv) Repugnancy requires transparent affirmative findings, not speculation

Peavy’s repugnancy argument depended on inferring a specific factual finding from the acquittal on Count 5 (no gun within arm’s reach during aggravated assault). The Court refused to make that inference because it would require speculation about the jury’s reasoning. Absent an appellate record that makes the jury’s rationale “transparent,” the verdicts are not repugnant even if they appear inconsistent.

C. Impact

(i) Practical guidance on verdict forms and Edge compliance

Peavy reinforces that Georgia trial courts retain flexibility in structuring verdict forms and explaining deliberation, so long as the instructions do not condition consideration of voluntary manslaughter on unanimous acquittal of malice/felony murder. Defense challenges focused only on ordering/placement—without a unanimity-gating instruction—face steep odds, especially under plain-error review.

(ii) Expert testimony in self-defense cases after the criminal adoption of Daubert

The opinion underscores that Rule 702 is not merely about credentials; it is about “fit” and whether the topic is genuinely beyond lay understanding on the presented facts. It also signals that Georgia appellate courts may uphold exclusion on relevance/helpfulness grounds without requiring trial courts to conduct a formal reliability analysis when reliability is not contested and relevance is dispositive.

(iii) Repugnant verdict doctrine remains narrow

The decision continues the Court’s strict distinction between (a) genuinely repugnant verdicts demonstrably based on irreconcilable affirmative findings and (b) mere inconsistencies that could reflect lenity, compromise, or mistake. Unless the record reveals the jury’s specific findings, repugnancy relief will be rare.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • “Sequential” instruction (Edge):

    Not every ordered verdict form is “sequential.” The problem is an instruction that tells jurors: “Do not even consider the lesser offense unless you first unanimously acquit of the greater offense.”

  • Voluntary manslaughter as a “lesser” to murder:

    If the defendant killed intentionally but did so because of legally sufficient provocation that aroused sudden, violent passion (and there was not enough “cooling time”), the crime can be reduced from murder to voluntary manslaughter.

  • Plain error:

    When a party did not object at trial, the appellate court will reverse only if the error is clear/obvious and likely affected the outcome, and if leaving it uncorrected would seriously harm the fairness or reputation of the courts.

  • Rule 702 (Daubert) “helpfulness” / “fit”:

    An expert can be qualified yet still excluded if the opinion does not connect to the actual facts and issues the jury must decide, or if it addresses matters jurors can decide without specialized knowledge.

  • Repugnant vs. inconsistent verdicts:

    “Inconsistent” means the verdicts look hard to reconcile. “Repugnant” is narrower: the record must show the jury made specific factual findings that cannot coexist. Without that transparency, appellate courts will not guess what the jury found.

5. Conclusion

Peavy v. State is a consolidating decision that clarifies three recurring criminal-trial issues in Georgia:

  1. Edge is violated by unanimity-gating of lesser-offense consideration—not by verdict-form ordering or telling jurors they may deliberate “in any order,” especially where the charge as a whole correctly explains voluntary manslaughter as an alternative to murder counts.
  2. Under Rule 702/Daubert, trial courts may exclude defense expert testimony on relevance/helpfulness grounds where the testimony lacks factual “fit” (including where the defendant lacks the training that would make the testimony pertinent), and a separate reliability analysis is unnecessary when relevance is dispositive and reliability is not challenged.
  3. Repugnant verdict relief remains exceptional; absent a record that makes the jury’s affirmative findings transparent, seemingly inconsistent acquittals and convictions will stand.