LAFARGUE v. STATE (2026)

Ricky Lafargue appeals from his convictions for malice murder and related crimes arising from the shooting death of Thuan Nguyen.¹ In his sole enumeration of error, Lafargue asserts that he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel when his trial counsel failed to request a justification charge. Because Lafargue has not shown that any deficiency in his counsel's performance prejudiced his defense, we affirm.

1. The evidence introduced at trial showed that in March 2020, Nguyen and his girlfriend, Heidy Barnes-Rosa, travelled to Atlanta from Nashville for a shopping trip. Around 6:15 p.m. on March 8, Nguyen and Barnes-Rosa drove to Lenox Mall in Nguyen's black BMW. Barnes-Rosa testified that they had been turned away from the valet and were driving around the parking lot trying to find a parking spot. When they “finally found a parking spot, ․ someone took [their] parking spot and almost hit [Nguyen's] car.” After the occupants of the other car took their spot, they walked past Nguyen's car and pointed and laughed at them, although Barnes-Rosa could not hear what they were saying. Nguyen got out of the car and said something to the group as they walked toward the mall, but Barnes-Rosa denied that Nguyen had a firearm, knife, or any other weapon that day. The State played a recording of the surveillance video from Lenox Mall that showed the encounter, and Barnes-Rosa identified Nguyen and his car for the jury.

Barnes-Rosa testified that they eventually found a different parking spot and went inside the mall and bought some ice cream and chocolate-covered strawberries. After that, they went to a few stores because Barnes-Rosa needed clothes and shoes to wear to dinner that night. While Barnes-Rosa was trying on a dress, Nguyen told her, “ ‘I'll be right back’ ” and “just kind of stormed off.” Because the mall was about to close, Barnes-Rosa paid for her dress and bought shoes from a nearby store. She then headed back through the mall to their car while she repeatedly called Nguyen to try to find him. Barnes-Rosa encountered a crowd around the mall's exit door, and once she got outside, she saw Nguyen's body on the ground with yellow tape around it.

Multiple eyewitnesses testified as to what they observed at the time of the shooting. Norman Spain and his wife Judy were looking for a parking space when Norman noticed “a group of younger people” leaving the mall. He saw a man, later identified as Nguyen, come out of the mall and walk ahead of the group to the trunk of a car. He then saw one of the younger men, who was wearing a dark sweatshirt, approach Nguyen from behind and give Nguyen “a light, trying to get attention, push[ ].” Nguyen did not respond and moved toward the front of the car. The man in the dark sweatshirt then “pulled out a gun to the back of [Nguyen's] head—because there was no response from him except one time he might have attempted to turn a little bit—put the gun to the head and pulled the trigger, to the back here.” Norman explained that the shooter's motion to raise the gun was “immediately in adjacent time to when he was trying to push [Nguyen].” He denied that the shooter hit Nguyen with the gun. Norman did not see Nguyen holding anything other than a shopping bag and did not see Nguyen strike the shooter or anyone else in that group.

Judy similarly testified that she was watching an individual—later identified as Nguyen—walking back to his car that day because of how difficult it was to find a parking spot. She saw four other men walking behind Nguyen, one of whom “raised his gun and shot [Nguyen] in the back of the head.” She did not see Nguyen with any type of weapon in his hands. She testified that “[t]here was no altercation. There was nothing prior to that except the shot.” Judy got out of their car to see if she could render any kind of medical aid, but after she saw Nguyen she knew that she would not be able to help him and called 911. A recording of her 911 call was played for the jury. After the shooting, the other four men “took off,” and then she heard the “squeal of a car being pulled out.” Then she saw a car going toward the front of the mall, where it “banged into another car.” The men who had been involved in the shooting jumped out of the car and ran in different directions.

Randall McDonald testified that as he exited Lenox Mall into the parking lot, he noticed a “commotion” involving “cursing” and “some rough action.” McDonald saw a group of five “assailants” who were “harassing” a man. As they approached a car, the group was “attacking” the victim, “physically hitting him and kicking him” and “pushing him around.” By the time they got to the car, the assailants “had fully engulfed him” and were “jumping on him, attacking him.” One of the men, who was right behind the victim, then shot the victim “in the back of the head, pointblank.” McDonald testified that the shooter “was in full control of what he was doing.”

As the other men in the group were running away, the shooter threw the gun underneath a nearby car. McDonald then heard someone say, “[G]o back and get the gun.” The shooter crawled under the car to retrieve the gun before they all got in a car and fled. At the time that their car crashed, McDonald was standing over the victim, looking for a pulse. McDonald called 911, and a recording of that call was played for the jury. McDonald never observed the victim with a firearm, knife, or any other weapon. He explained that the victim “was not aggressive” and was “more or less kind of keeping people off of him; you know, just trying to block blows.” He described the shooting as “[s]enseless and more of an execution.”

Caden Hartley testified that as she and her father were exiting their car to enter Lenox Mall, she heard several men yelling. She noticed three men to the left of one man, shouting at him. Because she “had a gut feeling that something was going to happen,” she grabbed her cell phone. As she was reaching for her phone, she heard a gunshot and began recording as the other men immediately got into their car and tried to drive off. She continued to record as that car crashed into another car and an off-duty police officer began holding one of the car's occupants down on the ground. A copy of her cell phone recording was played for the jury. Caden did not see Nguyen with a firearm, knife, or other weapon, nor did she witness Nguyen try to assault any of the men who were shouting at him.

Caden's father, Robert Hartley, testified that as he was exiting the car, he saw a group of younger men walking out of the mall and that the group was “clearly picking on someone else, who was by himself.” He described the group of men as “very theatrical with, you know, we're going to beat you up type of an attitude.” Robert explained that, because it “looked like there was a large group of people versus one,” he started walking closer to see if he “was needed.” He then noticed the group of men trying to surround the victim and that after someone in the group caused “some sort of distraction” that drew the victim's attention away, one of the men pulled out a gun and shot the victim in the back of his head from a “very close” distance. According to Robert, the shooter “was definitely in control of what he was doing.” Immediately after the victim fell to the ground, the group of men ran to a vehicle, which “squeal[ed] through the parking lot” and hit another car in the valet area. He did not see the victim with a firearm, knife, or other weapon, nor did he see the victim take any aggressive action toward anyone in the larger group.

Tyrone Reid, an off-duty Cobb County Sheriff's Deputy, was sitting in his car in the Lenox Mall parking lot while waiting for his wife and daughters to finish shopping. Reid testified that he noticed a group of four or five younger men walking out of the mall, “bickering” with a lone man walking behind them with one of his fists clenched. Because it appeared that there may be “an altercation,” Reid tried to keep an eye on the parties in case he might need to intervene. Reid lost sight of them, however, as they made their way through the parking lot until he looked at the passenger-side mirror and saw the lone man “kind of look up in shock,” which he later presumed was the moment Nguyen was shot. The shooter, who was wearing a black hoodie, was holding the gun a “couple of inches” from the back of Nguyen's head.

When Reid got out of his car, he saw one of the young men from the group, who was wearing a white hoodie, on the ground. The men in the black and white hoodies rushed into a car, which sped toward the exit of the parking lot before crashing into another car. Four or five men jumped out of the car and ran. When Reid reached the car, a man in a white hoodie appeared to be “stuck” in the car. Reid drew his weapon, fearing that the man was armed, and ordered the man to get on the ground. Reid kept the man, later identified as Mamadou Bah, on the ground until Atlanta Police Department officers arrived.

Bah ² testified that he and a friend he referred to as “Diallo” traveled from their homes in New York to Atlanta sometime in early 2020. They drove a gray rental Hyundai SUV. While in Atlanta, they met with Lafargue, who was also from New York, a few times. On March 8, 2020, Bah, Diallo, Lafargue, someone that he knew as “Dollar Boy,” and maybe one or two other people all went to Lenox Mall. Bah denied seeing anyone with a gun that day. Bah identified himself on the mall's surveillance video footage as the person wearing a white hoodie and identified Lafargue as the person wearing a black hoodie and a black hat with the letters “KC” on it. Bah explained that there was a brief “back-and-forth” with Nguyen and some of the guys in his group over a parking spot before they went inside the mall.

As they were leaving the mall, Bah realized that Nguyen was following them, so Bah told him “to back off.” According to Bah, Nguyen then “ran behind [him]” and “punched” him in the back; Bah punched him in retaliation. Bah claimed that he was fighting with Nguyen and was not paying attention to what the other people in their group were doing at the time, but when he heard “something pop that sounded like gunshots,” he ran to the car along with the rest of his group. After the car crashed while trying to get away, Bah did not see where the others went. Bah confirmed that he did not see Nguyen with a firearm, knife, or any weapon.

The surveillance video from Lenox Mall was recorded from a roving camera, so it did not capture the incident continuously. However, for five seconds, it showed Lafargue and his group of friends walking out of the mall towards the parking lot. A few seconds later, Lafargue and another man turned to face Nguyen, and Bah started to move behind Nguyen. Lafargue then reached into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. At no point in the recording did Nguyen hit any of the members of Lafargue's group. When the video panned back to the parking lot, Nguyen was surrounded by Lafargue and his friends, and Nguyen collapsed while Lafargue and his friends fled.

Responding officers located a cell phone and a Smith & Wesson 0.38 revolver on the floorboard of the front passenger seat of the vehicle that had crashed in front of the mall. Officers retrieved an e-mail address that included “riccjames.”³ DNA recovered from a hat left near the scene of the car crash and from the revolver found in the car matched a subsequent sample taken from Lafargue. After recovering a latent fingerprint on the front passenger window, officers were able to obtain a photograph of Lafargue from a law enforcement agency in New York, which they then used to identify Lafargue on the mall's surveillance video footage. A member of the Atlanta Police Department's Fugitive Unit apprehended Lafargue in New York.

The lead detective testified that at the time Bah was detained, he did not observe any injuries on Bah and that Bah did not complain of any injuries. The detective also explained that a hammerless revolver, such as the one recovered in this case, requires “full force” to pull the trigger. The medical examiner who performed Nguyen's autopsy testified that Nguyen died from a gunshot wound to his head and that there were no injuries in the area consistent with Nguyen having been struck with a gun. Based on the nature of the wound and the presence of soot inside the wound, the medical examiner opined that the shooter had pressed the gun to Nguyen's head when he fired the gun.

Lafargue testified at trial that when his group “hurr[ied] up” and took the parking spot that Nguyen was waiting on, Nguyen became angry, “yelling” and “moving his hands.” Lafargue and his group continued walking into the mall. After shopping and getting some food, they were walking toward the exit when they realized that Bah had stopped behind them and was talking to Nguyen. They yelled at Bah to hurry up, and as Bah walked to catch up with them, Nguyen followed him. Once they reached the parking lot, Nguyen and Bah continued exchanging words. When Nguyen punched Bah in the face, Bah started “throwing punches.” According to Lafargue, Nguyen had a metal object in his hand and knocked Bah to the ground, but Bah was able to get right back up. At that point, Lafargue decided to “step in” and “grab the gun” from a “pouch” he was wearing. Lafargue testified that he didn't “want to shoot him or nothing, so [he] just ․ pistol-whipped [Nguyen] one time.” When he “hit him with the gun in the back of the head[,] ․ [he] hear[d] the shot go off.” When Lafargue realized that Nguyen was shot, he “was scared” and “started running.”

On cross-examination, Lafargue admitted that his “index finger [was] on the trigger” when he struck Nguyen. Lafargue agreed that the metal object he saw in Nguyen's hand could have been the rings Nguyen was wearing. Ultimately, Lafargue claimed that he “assaulted [Nguyen] with the gun, and the gun accidentally discharged.” He testified that he fled the scene and returned to New York at 2:00 a.m. that night because “this [was his] first time” and he didn't “know what to do.”

2. On appeal, Lafargue argues that he received constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel because his trial counsel failed to request a justification charge based on Lafargue's belief that he acted in defense in Bah and that counsel essentially “conceded” that Lafargue had committed an unjustified aggravated assault. In order to prevail on this claim, Lafargue must show both that counsel's performance was constitutionally deficient and that the deficient performance resulted in prejudice to him. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 687 (1984). To satisfy the deficiency prong, Lafargue must show that “his attorney performed at trial in an objectively unreasonable way considering all the circumstances and in light of prevailing professional norms.” Taylor v. State, 315 Ga. 630, 647 (2023) (punctuation omitted). To establish prejudice, Lafargue must demonstrate “a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's deficiency, the result of the trial would have been different.” Floyd v. State, 307 Ga. 789, 799 (2020). If Lafargue fails to meet his burden of proving either prong of the Strickland test, we need not examine the other prong. See Ealey v. State, 322 Ga. 509, 522 (2025).

During the charge conference, outside the presence of the jury, defense counsel agreed that, although he had initially requested various justification defenses, self-defense and defense of others were not at issue in this case. He clarified that he was seeking a jury charge on accident, not justification. He also requested a charge on criminal negligence. When the charge conference continued the following day, again outside the presence of the jury, defense counsel reiterated that he was requesting “the accident charge with the criminal negligence definition.” The trial court ruled, however, that pistol-whipping someone or pointing a gun at their head supports criminal negligence,⁴ and the presence of criminal negligence precludes an accident charge. The trial court also noted that an accident charge was not warranted because the evidence showed that the shooting occurred “in the midst of an unjustified aggravated assault with a firearm.” Defense counsel objected to the trial court's refusal to charge the jury on accident. Following the jury charge, he did not renew his objection.

At the motion for new trial hearing, trial counsel, who has practiced criminal law in New York since 1989, testified that he researched Georgia law prior to trial. He explained that this case was complicated and that “defense of self was out” and that defense of others was a “difficult question of fact” because the video did not show an assault that had happened to any of Lafargue's friends. His strategy was “to try to get [Lafargue] into a position to justify that hitting or to explain why he would at that time need to remove a weapon and hit the individual.” He noted that Lafargue “never said he took out the gun to shoot him to protect his friends. He took out the gun to hit the guy.” And the evidence showed that “at the time that [Lafargue] was involved with [Nguyen], there was no physical contact between [Bah and Nguyen].” Counsel testified that he was aware that acting with criminal negligence precluded giving an accident charge, but that he initially “asked for everything that [he] could.” He later withdrew his request for justification because “at the moment” that Lafargue hit Nguyen, “there was no physical altercation happening ․ for ․ at least a couple of seconds.”

In denying the motion for new trial, the trial court credited counsel's testimony that he was constrained in the charges he could request given Lafargue's testimony about the incident. The trial court then concluded that counsel was not deficient because he made a strategic choice after thoughtful consideration.

Pretermitting whether trial counsel performed deficiently in withdrawing his request for a charge on defense of others, Lafargue has not shown prejudice. The evidence was overwhelming that Lafargue, without provocation, intentionally shot Nguyen in the back of the head. Multiple eyewitnesses testified that Nguyen, who was significantly outnumbered, did not physically attack anyone in Lafargue's group ⁵ and that Lafargue intentionally raised the gun to Nguyen's head to shoot him, not to pistol whip him. The medical examiner testified that the shooter likely pressed the gun to Nguyen's head when firing the weapon and that Nguyen did not have an injury consistent with being struck with a gun. Although Lafargue claimed that he had his finger on the trigger when he allegedly struck Nguyen with the gun, causing it to accidentally fire, a detective testified that the type of gun used in this case would require “full force” to pull the trigger.

Thus, even if counsel had requested a charge for defense of others, it is highly likely that the jury would have rejected that defense and still found Lafargue guilty of malice murder.⁶ See Copney v. State, 322 Ga. 794, 809 (2025) (because the evidence of appellant's guilt was overwhelming and any alleged prejudice from counsel's deficiencies was far outweighed by the evidence of appellant's guilt, appellant failed to show a reasonable probability that the result of his trial would have been different); Williams v. State, 320 Ga. 592, 604 (2024) (where evidence supporting defense of habitation was weak and evidence of appellant's guilt was strong, appellant failed to show that there was a reasonable probability that the result of her trial would have been different but for counsel's withdrawal of the request to charge).

Judgment affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The crimes were committed on March 8, 2020. In January 2024, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Lafargue for malice murder (Count 1), felony murder (Count 2), aggravated assault (Count 3), and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 4). At a jury trial held in June 2024, Lafargue was found guilty on all counts. The trial court sentenced Lafargue to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder (Count 1) and a consecutive five-year term in prison for possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 4); the remaining counts either merged for sentencing purposes or were vacated by operation of law. Lafargue timely filed a motion for new trial, which was amended by new counsel in August 2025. Following an evidentiary hearing in October 2025, the trial court denied the motion for new trial, as amended, on December 1, 2025. Lafargue timely filed a notice of appeal, and his case was docketed to the April 2026 term of this Court and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

2.   Prior to trial, Bah entered a guilty plea to a charge of giving false statements after his arrest in this case, which he admitted during his direct examination by the State at trial.

3.   Lafargue's first and middle names are Ricky James.

4.   The trial court appeared to mis-speak and state that these actions show that there is “not” criminal negligence, but then ruled that because there is criminal negligence, the defense of accident does not apply.

5.   In support of his justification defense, Lafargue relies on his own self-serving testimony and that of his friend Bah, but even Bah testified that though he and Nguyen exchanged punches, Nguyen was not carrying a weapon. See OCGA § 16-3-21 (“a person is justified in using force which is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily injury to ․ a third person or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony”).

6.   Lafargue also argues that, had counsel asked for a charge on defense of others, the trial court would have also been compelled to reconsider its decision to not give the accident charge on the theory that Lafarge was justified in pistol-whipping Nguyen to protect Bah, which resulted in the accidental discharge of the gun. However, for the same reasons outlined above, there is no prejudice from the failure to give the accident charge given the overwhelming evidence of guilt and the limited evidence supporting the justification and accident defenses.

McMillian, Justice.

All the Justices concur, except Warren, P. J., not participating.