BROWNE v. STATE (2026)

In November 2022, Theodore Browne was convicted of felony murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony related to the shooting death of Edwin Johnson. Browne appeals his convictions, arguing that the trial court committed plain error by giving an incomplete jury instruction about the requirement of corroboration of accomplice testimony and by instructing the jury that when a crime is charged as committed in multiple ways or methods “the State makes a prima facie case by proof of any one of the ways or methods.” Browne also argues that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to these instructions. Finally, Browne argues that the trial court erred by declining his request to give an instruction on voluntary manslaughter and that the cumulative prejudice resulting from the errors he alleges requires a new trial. For the reasons discussed below, Browne's claims fail, and we affirm his convictions.¹

1. The evidence presented at trial showed the following. Surveillance videos from a motel in DeKalb County showed that at 3:11 a.m. on June 23, 2019, Johnson drove his “dark sedan” into the motel's parking lot. One minute later, a “lighter-colored” Infiniti G35 pulled in.² At 3:17 a.m., a woman got out of the Infiniti and walked to Johnson's car. About a minute later, two men got out of the Infiniti; one, who was wearing a “light-colored shirt,” “appear[ed] to be carrying a long gun.”³ Thirty seconds later, the woman began to walk away from Johnson's car. The man in the light-colored shirt approached the car and began shooting at it.⁴ Then, the two men and the woman got back into the light-colored car and drove away.

Guests and employees at the motel called 911 and reported hearing five or six gunshots from the back of the motel. When law enforcement officers arrived, they found Johnson in his car, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. One witness from the motel told a responding police officer that “after she heard some shots outside,” she heard “a male ․ yelling for Ana, Ana.”

The afternoon following the shooting, Browne was driving a beige Infiniti G35 when he was stopped by a police officer for a seatbelt violation. He was arrested after police discovered marijuana and ecstasy in the trunk. While in jail, Browne exchanged calls and messages with Anastasia Shears instructing her to, among other things, retrieve his Infiniti out of the impound lot.

Using pictures of Shears posted online, an investigator identified Shears as the woman in the surveillance video from the motel. Shears testified at trial as follows. In June 2019, she lived with Browne, and he arranged for her to engage in prostitution by setting up “plays” for her. On the night of June 22, Browne drove Shears, a woman Shears did not know, and a woman Shears knew as “Jas”—who was also engaging in prostitution arranged by Browne—to a motel. At the motel, the woman Shears did not know got in a “dark-colored car” to “make some money.” About five to ten minutes later, the woman returned to the car “completely naked” with “blood everywhere” and a “busted” face. She was crying “hysterical[ly]” and said she had been “beat[en] and raped.” Shears helped “clean [the woman] up.” Shears then told Browne that she wanted to go home, but Browne said Shears “had to make at least another play first before the night was over.” Browne set up a “play” for Shears at a different motel. They first drove to a house and picked up a man Shears did not know and then drove to a motel. Browne saw a “black car”; told Shears, “That's the car”; and told her she “was either going to go in the guy's car or he had a room at the hotel.” Shears walked up to the car. About a minute and a half later, she heard Browne scream, “Ana, move.” Shears “moved out of the way.” She heard gunshots and “kept running.” After the shooting, Shears got back in the car with Browne because she was “scared.”⁵

From the surveillance video, Shears later identified the Infiniti as the car Browne was driving that night and Browne as the man wearing the light-colored shirt. She testified that she did not know that Browne intended to shoot anyone that night. Shears acknowledged that she had been arrested and charged with felony murder and armed robbery related to the crimes against Johnson and that she was released from jail on a consent bond based on her agreement to cooperate with the State.⁶

Maliyah Franklin, who was known as “Jas” and had engaged in prostitution arranged by Browne, testified as follows. In the “summertime” of 2019, she went with Browne and Shears to a hotel to “see one of [Browne's] girls.” At the hotel, Browne told the woman she had a “play” at “4 o'clock.”⁷ The “play” was in a “maybe dark” car. About 15 minutes after the woman left, she returned “naked” and “bleeding.” Browne “wanted to know what happened” and was acting “confused,” but he did not seem “upset.” Franklin asked to leave, and Browne took her home. Franklin did not see Browne again that night. Franklin identified the car Browne was driving as the one in the surveillance video of the shooting.

Browne testified at trial that he had never been to the motel where the shooting happened and had never arranged for Shears to engage in prostitution. He acknowledged that Shears had lived with him and that in June 2019, he owned a beige Infiniti.

2. Browne contends that the trial court committed plain error when it limited the instruction that accomplice testimony must be corroborated to the felony murder counts.

(a) In its charge to the jury, the trial court instructed the jury that “a single witness, if believed, is sufficient to establish a fact,” but the court also explained:

An exception to this rule is made in the case of felony murder, where the witness is an accomplice. The testimony of the accomplice alone is not sufficient to warrant a conviction. The accomplice's testimony must be supported by other evidence of some type, and that evidence must be such as would lead to the inference of the guilt of the accused independent of the testimony of the accomplice. ․ The supporting evidence must be more than that a crime was actually committed by someone. It must be sufficient to connect the accused with the criminal act and must be more than sufficient to merely cast upon the accused a grave suspicion of guilt.

In his closing argument, Browne's counsel argued that the State's “whole case was [dependent] on Anastasia Shears, an accomplice,” who got a “good deal.” He asserted that the lack of corroboration for Shears's testimony affected all of the charges against Browne. Regarding the felony murder based on aggravated assault, he contended that if the jury found “that accomplice [testimony] was the only testimony and it was uncorroborated, then, obviously, you don't find him guilty on the murder case”—meaning the jury should also acquit on aggravated assault because “you don't find that he killed another individual or that he shot another individual by committing aggravated assault.” He further argued, “If you don't believe that [Browne] committed the murder ․ again, that one accomplice, and that was the only evidence they have ․ on that count of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, you will also have to find him not guilty because you don't believe he was the individual that shot [Johnson].” The State argued in closing that there was corroboration of Shears's testimony and that Shears was not an accomplice because Browne coerced her to be present at the scene of the shooting and she did not know about Browne's plan.

(b) Browne did not object to the limitation of the accomplice corroboration instruction at trial, so we review his claim only for plain error. See OCGA § 17-8-58(b). See also Williams v. State, 321 Ga. 390, 393 (2025). To succeed on this claim, Browne must show that this alleged instructional error “was not intentionally relinquished or abandoned, i.e., affirmatively waived” by him; was “clear or obvious, rather than subject to reasonable dispute”; affected Browne's “substantial rights, which in the ordinary case means he must demonstrate that it affected the outcome of the trial court proceedings”; and “seriously affect[ed] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. at 393–94 (quotation marks omitted). “If one prong of the plain error test is not satisfied, we need not address the other prongs of the test.” Id. at 394 (cleaned up).

Because the requirement that accomplice testimony be corroborated applies to all felony cases, it was clear error for the trial court to limit the accomplice requirement to only the felony murder counts. See OCGA § 24-14-8 (requiring corroboration in “felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice” (emphasis added)). See also Yarn v. State, 305 Ga. 421, 423 (2019) (“The testimony of an accomplice must be corroborated to sustain a felony conviction.”).

However, Browne has failed to show that limiting the accomplice corroboration requirement likely affected the outcome of his trial. The jury was correctly instructed that if it found that Shears was an accomplice, it could find Browne guilty of felony murder based on her testimony only if that testimony was corroborated by evidence that led to “the inference of the guilt of” Browne. Presuming—as we do—that the jury followed that instruction, the jury found Browne guilty of felony murder based on aggravated assault, which means the jury either concluded that Shears was not an accomplice or that her testimony that Browne shot Johnson—which was the only conduct alleged to show felony murder based on aggravated assault—was corroborated. See Willis v. State, 315 Ga. 19, 27 (2022) (“Qualified jurors under oath are presumed to follow the trial court's instructions.”).

Specifically, if the jury concluded that Shears was in fact an accomplice, the jury's verdict on felony murder based on aggravated assault shows that the jury concluded that Shears's accomplice testimony showing that Browne committed aggravated assault ⁸ and firearm possession was corroborated. That is because, as with the count of felony murder based on aggravated assault, the counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony were also based solely on Browne's act of shooting Johnson. It follows that the jury's guilty verdict on felony murder based on aggravated assault demonstrates that the jury concluded that Shears's testimony showing Browne committed aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony—which was the same testimony showing he committed felony murder based on aggravated assault—was corroborated. Indeed, the interconnectedness of all three crimes was laid out by Browne in his closing argument, when he explained to the jury why it must acquit on all three of these charges if it concluded that Shears's accomplice testimony as to the felony murder was not corroborated.

Accordingly, Browne has not shown that the outcome of his case would have changed if the jury had been instructed that felony counts of aggravated assault and firearm possession also required corroboration of accomplice testimony, and Browne's plain error claim fails. See Westbrook v. State, 323 Ga. 199, 203 (2025) (holding that it was “highly probable” that the court's failure to include aggravated assault and aggravated battery in its definition of forcible felonies that can be the basis of a justification defense “did not contribute to the verdict” where “[t]he theories of justification associated with these requested instructions were related to, and based on the same evidence as, the theories of justification on which the jury was actually instructed,” and the omitted theories of justification were weaker than the one on which the jury was properly instructed but disbelieved).

3. Browne also argues that the trial court committed plain error when it instructed the jury that when a crime is charged as committed in separate ways, the State need not prove all the separate ways, but instead “the State makes a prima facie case by proof of any one of the ways or methods.”

(a) As part of the final jury charge, the court instructed the jury:

When a defendant is charged with a violation of the law, in an indictment where the crime may be committed in separate ways or methods and said crime is charged as being committed in more than one way or method, the crime must be charged conjunctively using the word ‘and’ to list all ways or methods. However, the State is not required to prove all of such separate ways or methods alleged in the indictment. Rather, the State makes a prima facie case by proof of any one of the ways or methods.

The court also instructed the jury that the State has the burden “to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” and that “[n]o person shall be convicted of any crimes unless and until each element of the crime is proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” The court reiterated the State's burden of proof several more times in the final charge, including discussing this standard in the context of the State's burden to prove identity:

It is for you to say whether under the evidence in this case the testimony of the witnesses and the facts and circumstances of the case sufficiently identified this defendant beyond a reasonable doubt as the perpetrator of the alleged crime or that the defendant was a party to it. If you do not believe that the defendant has been sufficiently identified as the person who committed the alleged crime or was a party to it, or if you have any reasonable doubt about such, then it would be your duty to acquit the defendant. The burden of proof rests upon the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the identity of this defendant ․ as the person who committed ․ the crime alleged in this bill of indictment.

Near the end of the instructions, the court also explained that, as to each crime, in order to find Browne guilty, the jury would need to find “beyond a reasonable doubt under all of the evidence and the court's instructions” that Browne committed the alleged act.

(b) Because Browne failed to object to this “prima facie case” instruction at trial, we review his claim only for plain error, which, as explained above, requires him to show, among other things, that there was a “clear or obvious” error that likely “affected the outcome” of his trial. Williams, 321 Ga. at 393.⁹

The “prima facie case” language used in the instruction given by the trial court “appears to be referring to the State's burden to overcome a defendant's motion for a directed verdict, not the State's burden at trial, and has no place in jury instructions.” Medina v. State, 323 Ga. 764, 771–72 (2026). Thus, the trial court committed “a clear and obvious error” by instructing the jury that the State “makes a prima facie case” by proving one of the ways or methods alleged in the indictment. Id.

However, Browne has not shown that this instruction likely affected the outcome of his trial. In evaluating an alleged error in jury instructions, “we do not assess jury charges in isolation; rather, we consider them as a whole to determine whether there is a reasonable likelihood the jury improperly applied a challenged instruction.” Locklear v. State, 317 Ga. 115, 122 (2023) (quotation marks omitted). Here, the “prima facie case” instruction did not expressly authorize the jury to find Browne guilty of any charged crime based solely on a “prima facie case.” It merely informed the jury that the State was required to prove only one alleged method of a charged crime in order to “make[ ] a prima facie case.” The jury was not told that the State making a prima facie case was sufficient for the jury to find Browne guilty of any crime. Instead, the trial court repeatedly told the jury that the State was required to prove the alleged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt—and it specifically instructed the jury that “each and every element of the crime” must be “proven beyond a reasonable doubt” and that to find Browne guilty of the charged crimes, the jury would need to find “beyond a reasonable doubt under all of the evidence and the court's instructions” that Browne committed the alleged acts.

Moreover, the “prima facie case” instruction applied to the method of a crime. The key issue at trial was not the method of the crimes but whether Browne had been sufficiently identified as the shooter. As to that issue, the jury was expressly instructed that “the burden of proof” was on the State “to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the identity” of Browne as the person who committed the crime alleged in the indictment.

Thus, Browne has not shown that the court's brief reference to a “prima facie case” likely affected the outcome of his trial. See Medina, 323 Ga. at 770–72 (holding that the court's clear error of using the “prima facie case” language in the jury instruction was harmless where the main issue in the case was whether the appellant acted in self-defense, the instruction plainly did not apply to that affirmative defense, and “the trial court otherwise properly instructed the jury on the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard as it applied to the State's burden to disprove the justification defenses”). See also Howard v. State, 307 Ga. 12, 20 (2019), disapproved of on other grounds by Johnson v. State, 315 Ga. 876 (2023) (holding that although the trial court erred by giving a spoliation instruction that is “inapplicable in criminal cases and violative of a defendant's right to be convicted by evidence establishing guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the instruction was harmless, in part because the jury was otherwise properly charged on the State's burden of proof and “the erroneous charge in no way pointed directly at the substance of [the appellant's] defense” (cleaned up)).¹⁰

4. Browne also argues that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to the two jury instructions discussed above. To prevail on these claims, Browne has the burden of showing both deficient performance and resulting prejudice. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 687 (1984). “If either prong is not met, we need not address the other.” Medina, 323 Ga. at 769. To establish prejudice, Browne “must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's deficiency, the result of the trial would have been different.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).

We have explained that if an appellant fails to show that an error affected his “substantial rights” under plain error review, meaning that it likely affected the outcome of his trial, he has also failed to show prejudice under Strickland’s framework for related claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. See Clark v. State, 315 Ga. 423, 442 (2023) (“The test for prejudice in the ineffective assistance analysis is equivalent to the test for harm in plain error review.” (cleaned up)). As a result, even if we assume trial counsel performed deficiently by failing to object to the instructions at issue, Browne's ineffective assistance claims fail because—for the reasons discussed above in Divisions 2 and 3—he has not shown that the instructions likely affected the outcome of his trial, and thus, he has failed to show prejudice. See id.

5. Browne asserts that the trial court erred by denying his request to instruct the jury on voluntary manslaughter. Browne timely objected to the lack of this instruction at trial, so it is preserved for ordinary appellate review. See OCGA § 17-8-58(b).

When a defendant requests a jury instruction on voluntary manslaughter, “the trial court must give the instruction if there is slight evidence to support it—that is, if there is slight evidence that the defendant, in killing the victim, acted under a serious provocation that could excite a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion in a reasonable person.” Anderson v. State, 319 Ga. 56, 61 (2024). See also OCGA § 16-5-2 (defining voluntary manslaughter). Here, Browne's claim fails because there was not even slight evidence to support a voluntary manslaughter instruction.

Browne argues that the evidence that a woman he was involved with ¹¹ was attacked by someone in a dark car earlier in the night before the shooting supports a voluntary manslaughter instruction because it constituted slight evidence he was provoked into shooting Johnson, who was also driving a dark car. However, the record reveals that the only connection between the attacker and Johnson is that both drove dark cars. When Browne spoke to Shears about her final “play” of the night, he gave no indication that the attacker and Johnson were connected. There is also no evidence that after the attack earlier in the night, Browne “was so influenced and excited that he reacted passionately.” See Henderson v. State, 322 Ga. 304, 307 (2025). To the contrary, Franklin testified that although Browne “wanted to know what happened” after the attack, he did not seem “upset.” Likewise, there was no evidence that Browne was influenced in any way by the earlier attack when informing Shears about the “play” involving Johnson, picking up the unknown man, driving to the hotel where they met Johnson, and telling Shears “that's the car” before she walked up to it.¹² And there was no other evidence that Johnson provoked a passionate reaction from Browne. See Smith v. State, 296 Ga. 731, 737 (2015) (explaining that an instruction on voluntary manslaughter is required where there is slight evidence “that the victim seriously provoked the defendant”). Given the tenuous connection between the earlier attack and Johnson and the lack of evidence that Browne connected these two events or was provoked into a “sudden, violent, and irresistible passion” by the earlier attack, the connection between the earlier attack and Johnson's shooting was simply too attenuated to provide even slight evidence of voluntary manslaughter, and the trial court did not err by declining to give a voluntary manslaughter instruction. See Merritt v. State, 310 Ga. 433, 442 (2020) (holding that there was not slight evidence to support a charge on voluntary manslaughter where the evidence did “not show that Merritt was provoked by a sudden, irresistible passion when he shot [the victim],” there was no evidence that the victim “did or said anything to provoke Marritt's passions” before the shooting, and “Merritt's actions on the day of the shooting further demonstrate[d] that he was rational and calculating, not acting in the heat of passion”); Smith, 296 Ga. at 737 (holding that the trial court did not err in refusing to give a voluntary manslaughter instruction where there was no evidence that “appellant was taunted by the victim or subjected to any conduct that would excite the passions of a reasonable person” and the “prior altercation” involved the “appellant's relatives ․ some 30 or 40 minutes before the appellant arrived” at the scene).

6. Finally, Browne argues that all of the trial court's errors, considered cumulatively, entitle him to a new trial. Although we have held that evidentiary trial court errors and trial counsel deficiencies should be considered cumulatively, we have not decided whether this cumulative error review applies to jury instruction errors. See Flood v. State, 311 Ga. 800, 809 (2021) (assuming, without deciding, that instructional errors can be considered cumulatively). See also State v. Lane, 308 Ga. 10, 17 (2020). But even if we assume cumulative error review applies to jury instruction errors, and we consider the trial court's two errors discussed above, as well as the assumed trial counsel deficiencies on the same issues, Browne still has not shown that the errors denied him a fundamentally fair trial.

As an initial matter, the harm from the trial court errors and the prejudice from trial counsel's presumed deficiencies are the same, so they do not accumulate. See Zayas v. State, 319 Ga. 402, 414 (2024) (holding that the appellant's cumulative error claim failed where “the harm from the assumed errors and assumed deficiency is the same” (cleaned up)). And as discussed above, the harm from each error was minimal. The jury's conviction of Browne for felony murder based on aggravated assault shows that it found that Shears was not an accomplice or that her testimony that Browne shot Johnson was corroborated. And the trial court's repeated, clear instructions that the State was required to prove all charged crimes beyond a reasonable doubt rendered harmless the brief instruction that applied only to what was required for the State to make a “prima facie case” related to the “method” of the crime. Even when combined, these two minimal harms did not deny Browne a fundamentally fair trial, so Browne's cumulative error claim fails. See Dickerson v. State, 323 Ga. 389, 402 (2026) (holding that although there were “several errors,” “they each produced very little, if any, harm” and concluding that the appellant “failed to establish that the combined prejudicial effect of these errors requires a new trial”).

Judgment affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Johnson was killed in June 2019. In September 2021, a DeKalb County grand jury indicted Browne for two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony based on aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. At a jury trial in October and November 2022, the jury found Browne guilty of felony murder based on aggravated assault, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The jury found Browne not guilty of the other felony murder count and its predicate trafficking count, and the State nolle prossed the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon count. Browne was sentenced to serve life in prison for the felony murder count and five years in prison for the firearm possession during a felony count. The aggravated assault count merged into the felony murder count. Browne timely filed a motion for new trial in November 2022 and amended it with new counsel in December 2024 and March 2025. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Browne's motion in August 2025. In October 2025, Browne filed a motion for an out of time appeal under OCGA § 5-6-39.1, asserting that he had not been notified of the trial court's denial of his motion for new trial until October. The trial court signed a consent order granting Browne an out of time appeal, and Browne filed a timely notice of appeal to this Court. The appeal was docketed to this Court's April 2026 term. Browne's motion for oral argument was denied, and Browne's case was submitted for a decision on the briefs.

2.   Police officers identified the model of the car from the surveillance video and initially described its color as silver in their reports. At trial, several officers testified that they could tell from the surveillance video that the car was “a light color car,” but they acknowledged that the video was “a little bit grainy.” The video was admitted into evidence, played for the jury, and described by an officer who reviewed it.

3.   Because of the distance of the cameras and the poor video quality, it is not possible to see the faces of the men who approached Johnson's car. A surveillance video from a different angle, which did not capture the men, provided a clearer view of the woman.

4.   The other man cannot be seen on the surveillance video when the shooting happens. Immediately before the shooting, he appeared to be walking to the other side of Johnson's car (which is outside the camera's field of view).

5.   Shears did not explain whether Jas or the woman who had been attacked left the first motel with Shears and Browne, but Shears's testimony indicated that the other women were not in the car when the shooting happened.

6.   Shears also acknowledged on cross-examination that when she was interviewed by the police, she initially told them that she did not know anything about the shooting.

7.   Franklin did not indicate if the “play” was in the morning or afternoon.

8.   Browne was not convicted of aggravated assault; that count merged into the felony murder count. However, we consider the effect of the improperly-limited accomplice instruction as to aggravated assault to the extent it could have affected Browne's felony murder conviction, for which the aggravated assault was the predicate felony. We do not, however, consider the effect of the instruction on any other counts for which Browne was not convicted. See Dixon v. State, 309 Ga. 28, 32 n.4 (2020) (explaining that the appellant's claims as to counts that were vacated or merged or for which the jury found him not guilty were moot).

9.   There was no discussion about this instruction at trial, so it is not clear what crimes the trial court was referring to that were “charged as being committed in more than one way or method.” On appeal, the State argues that the instruction applied only to the trafficking count and the felony murder count based on trafficking because only the trafficking count—which alleged that Browne did “knowingly recruit, entice, harbor, transport and provide, by coercion and deception Anastasia Shears for the purpose of sexual servitude”—clearly alleged multiple ways the charged crime could have been committed. And, the State argues, because Browne was found not guilty of those two counts, this claim is moot. See Dixon, 309 Ga. at 32 n.4. Browne, by contrast, offers a few theories as to why the jury could have interpreted this instruction as applying to the crimes of which Browne was convicted (felony murder based on aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony), including that those counts charged Browne “individually and as a party to the crime.” We agree with Browne that the jury could have concluded that those crimes were “charged as being committed in more than one way or method” as described by the improper “prima facie case” instruction, so we reject the State's argument that the claim is moot.

10.   In support of his argument, Browne relies in part on Mohamed v. State, 276 Ga. 706 (2003), where we held that an improper jury instruction that included the phrase “prima facie” was harmful. This case, however, is distinguishable from Mohamed because the instruction in Mohamed established a “mandatory presumption of guilt” for a specific element of a crime, which is not something the instruction in this case purported to do. Compare Mohamed, 276 Ga. at 708. We also note that in Mohamed, in overruling a Court of Appeals case dealing with the same instruction given in Mohamed, we said: “The opinion in Wilson, holding that giving the jury an unconstitutional, burden-shifting instruction can be harmless when other instructions properly identify the State's burden of proof, is hereby overruled.” Mohamed, 276 Ga. at 708. Browne relies on this sentence to argue that giving the instruction at issue in this case “can never be harmless simply because other instructions properly identify the State's burden of proof.” But that is not what we held in Wilson; the language Browne references merely described the holding the Court was overruling; it should not be read as a statement that an erroneous instruction like the one at issue here can never be rendered harmless by other clear and correct instructions explaining the State's burden of proof. As explained above, each instruction must be considered in the context of the jury instructions as a whole. See Locklear, 317 Ga. at 122.

11.   In his brief on appeal, Browne refers to this woman as “a friend/individual,” but there was no evidence presented at trial that she and Browne were friends.

12.   On appeal, Browne contends that the evidence shows he “exclaimed, ‘that's the car’ ” and implies this exclamation was somehow connected to the earlier attack. Shears's testimony, however, was that Browne “said, ‘that's the car,’ ” and there was no implication that Browne was identifying the car as the one involved in the attack rather than simply the one where Shears was supposed to complete her “play.” In fact, after identifying the car, Browne told Shears the “play” would be in the car or a room at the hotel.

Warren, Presiding Justice.

All the Justices concur.