Denson v. State

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In the
Supreme Court of Georgia
No. S26A0448
Denson
v.
The State

On Appeal from the Superior Court of Fulton County
No. 17SC151173

Decided: June 16, 2026

COLVIN, Justice.
Appellant Travis Denson appeals his convictions for felony
murder and related offenses in connection with the shooting
death of Horace Gene Fendley.1 On appeal, Appellant argues that

1 The shooting occurred on January 13, 2017. On April 14, 2017, a Ful-
ton County grand jury indicted Appellant for malice murder (Count 1), felony
murder predicated on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (Count 2), fel-
ony murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a felony first-offender pro-
bationer (Count 3), aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (Count 4), pos-
session of a firearm during the commission of a felony (Count 5), and posses-
sion of a firearm by a first-offender probationer (Count 6). A jury trial was held
from April 23 through 26, 2018. The jury found Appellant guilty of involuntary
manslaughter as a lesser offense of malice murder, and the jury also found
Appellant guilty of the remaining counts. The trial court sentenced Appellant
to life in prison for Count 3 (felony murder predicated on possession of a fire-
arm by a felony first-offender probationer) and imposed a 20-year concurrent
prison sentence for Count 4 (aggravated assault with a deadly weapon) and a
five-year consecutive prison sentence for Count 5 (possession of a firearm dur-
ing the commission of a felony). The trial court vacated by operation of law
Count 1 (involuntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of malice murder) and
his trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to ob-
ject to certain statements made by the prosecutor in closing argu-
ments and that the trial court erred in sentencing him for felony
murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a felony first-
offender probationer rather than for involuntary manslaughter.
For the reasons explained below, we affirm Appellant’s convic-
tions.
1. The trial evidence showed the following. In January
2017, Appellant lived in a house in Fulton County with his long-
term partner, Janice Rainwater. Appellant and Rainwater spent
their days “scrapping” metal with Fendley, Appellant’s friend
whose father lived in the neighborhood. And Fendley sometimes
stayed overnight at the couple’s house.
The shooting occurred at Appellant and Rainwater’s house
on the night of January 13, after Appellant, Fendley, and Rain-
water had spent the day “scrapping” and drinking alcohol. Rain-
water testified that they returned to Appellant and Rainwater’s
house around 5:00 or 6:00 that evening, that she then went inside
the house, that Appellant and Fendley stayed outside in Appel-
lant’s truck, and that Appellant did not come back inside the
house for a couple hours.
Appellant said that he and Fendley were drinking beer and
that, at some point, they went to the liquor store to buy more

Count 2 (felony murder). Finally, the court merged for sentencing purposes
Count 6 (possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer) with Count 3
(felony murder predicated on possession of a firearm by a felony first-offender
probationer). Appellant timely filed a motion for new trial on May 8, 2018, and
amended the motion through new counsel on September 21, 2022, and January
4, 2023. Following a hearing, the trial court denied Appellant’s motion for new
trial on October 21, 2024. Appellant timely filed a notice of appeal directed to
this Court. The case was docketed to this Court’s term beginning in December
2025 and submitted for a decision on the briefs.

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beer. 2 When Appellant and Fendley got back to the house, Rain-
water was inside the house on one of the two couches near the
front door. Appellant said that he laid down on the other couch
and told Fendley that he was welcome to sit down, but that if he
left the house, he could not return that night. Fendley chose to
leave. And according to Appellant, who said he was drunk and
tired, he then fell asleep on the couch.
Appellant said that, later, he heard someone banging on
the front door, which was locked. He asked who was there, and
Fendley identified himself. Rainwater testified that Fendley
asked to be let inside, but that Appellant declined the request,
saying he “want[ed] to be with [his] wife.” According to Rainwa-
ter, Fendley started “getting a little bit aggressive,” insisting that
Appellant let him inside. And in response, Appellant said that
Fendley could not come in and that he needed to “get off [Appel-
lant’s] porch” and go away. Rainwater testified that Fendley then
started “jerking the door knob” while saying, “Let me in; let me
in; let me in.” But Appellant continued to insist that Fendley
leave.
Appellant then picked up his pistol, which was within
reach, and fired through the front door, striking Fendley in the
head and killing him. Not knowing that he had hit Fendley, Ap-
pellant got up from the couch, changed his clothes, and went to
the front door. According to Appellant, when he opened the door,
he saw Fendley lying on the porch, saw his next-door neighbor
walking in his direction, and said, “What have I done?” As Appel-
lant explained in his police interview:
I grabbed my pistol. And I was trying to scare him. I

2 Appellant did not testify at trial, but his police interview was admit-
ted into evidence and played for the jury.

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was going to shoot to the side of the door just to scare
him so he would run and get away … and don’t knock
on that door no more. And I shot, and Lord have
mercy, I done swear to God I did not mean to hit him.
I swear. That was my friend…. I wanted to just scare
him away so he won’t knock on the door no more.

Appellant’s next-door neighbor testified that, after the gun-
shot rang out, Appellant and Rainwater came outside through the
front door. 3 According to the neighbor, Rainwater said to Appel-
lant, “You didn’t have to do that to him,” and Appellant re-
sponded, “I was just trying to scare him away.”
According to Rainwater, she then walked up the street to
Fendley’s father’s house to tell him what had happened. And
when Rainwater returned, Appellant was standing outside.
Captain Clifford Gibson responded to the scene and en-
countered Appellant and Rainwater outside their home. Captain
Gibson testified that Appellant and Rainwater were “extremely
intoxicated” and that he directed them to move back in case some-
one started shooting from inside the house. But according to Cap-
tain Gibson, Appellant informed him that he owned the house and
that no one would be shooting from inside. Captain Gibson then
asked Appellant if he knew who had shot the victim. And accord-
ing to Captain Gibson, Appellant said, “Yeah, I did …. He
wouldn’t leave me alone.” When asked during his police interview
what he had told the police officer at the scene, Appellant said, “I

3 Appellant’s next-door neighbor gave a slightly different account than
Appellant and Rainwater as to how the shooting occurred. He testified that
Fendley went to Appellant’s door “to get his stuff,” that Appellant “hollered
just get up out of here” before “slam[ing] the door in [Fendley’s] face,” that
Fendley then knocked on the door “again,” and that a gunshot rang out “a cou-
ple of seconds” later.

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told him that it was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it. I told him
I was just trying to scare him off so he wouldn’t knock on my door
no more. I told him the same thing ’cause … it’s the truth.”
Although officers searched the house pursuant to a search
warrant, they were unable to locate the firearm used to shoot
Fendley. Finally, the State introduced into evidence Appellant’s
criminal record showing that he had been sentenced for burglary
as a first-offender probationer and was on probation when the
shooting occurred.
2. On appeal, Appellant argues that his trial counsel was
constitutionally ineffective for failing to object to three comments
the prosecutor made in closing arguments. To prevail on an inef-
fective-assistance-of-counsel claim, a defendant must show that
“counsel’s performance was deficient” and that “the deficient per-
formance prejudiced the defense.” Strickland v. Washington, 466
US 668, 687 (1984). “If the defendant fails to establish either de-
ficient performance or prejudice, this Court need not examine the
other requirement.” Washington v. State, 320 Ga. 839, 851 (2025).
“Establishing deficient performance requires a defendant
to demonstrate that his attorney performed at trial in an objec-
tively unreasonable way considering all the circumstances and in
the light of prevailing professional norms.” Washington, 320 Ga.
at 851 (quotation marks omitted). “There is a strong presumption
that counsel’s representation was within the wide range of rea-
sonable professional assistance.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
“Overcoming that presumption requires an appellant to show
that no reasonable lawyer would have done what his lawyer did
or would have failed to do what his lawyer did not.” Id. (cleaned
up).
As we have made clear, “a closing argument is to be judged
in the context in which it is made.” Lee v. State, 317 Ga. 880, 887

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(2023) (cleaned up). “[A] prosecutor is granted wide latitude in the
conduct of closing argument and within the scope of such latitude
is the prosecutor’s ability to argue reasonable inferences from the
evidence,” id. (cleaned up), as well as the prosecutor’s ability “to
rebut closing arguments made by the defense,” Robinson v. State,
323 Ga. 7, 19 (2025). “Moreover, whether to object to a particular
part of a prosecutor’s closing argument is a tactical decision, and
counsel’s decision not to make an objection must be patently un-
reasonable to rise to the level of deficient performance.” Lee, 317
Ga. at 887 (cleaned up).
As relevant here, trial counsel argued in closing arguments
that it would be unfair for Appellant to be held responsible for
possessing a firearm when the evidence did not show that he
knew his status as a first-offender probationer made it illegal for
him to possess a firearm. Trial counsel further argued that Ap-
pellant intended to shoot away from Fendley and had hit him only
by accident. And after noting that Fendley had aggressively
knocked on the door and twisted the doorknob, trial counsel ar-
gued that a person does not have to wait until an intruder gets
into his house before he can defend himself.
In response, the prosecutor made the following argument:
If you are supposed to be lawfully possessing
the gun, where is it? Lying. And then you heard him;
he came up with a story and it was conflicting — he
wouldn’t leave me alone. And then, oh, I was just
trying to scare him. Which one is it[?] The thing is,
he’s trying to sit up here and manipulate the legal
system by telling you these things about the first of-
fender.

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And then he tried to sit up here and manipu-
late the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office,
but he can’t manipulate us. He’s sitting up here try-
ing to manipulate you, you, you and you about this
case when that cannot happen. He cannot manipu-
late you.

And so all of this conduct of lying and trying
to create scenarios that would put him into the posi-
tion that, oh, the accident — oh, well at the same
time I was protecting the home.

Which one is it? Lies. Lies. Trying to create a
story to make you believe that he was justified in
shooting somebody on the other side of the door?

So you mean the Girl[ ] Scout is going to come
knocking on the door. And if she knocks on the door
to get more people’s attention, he’s going to be justi-
fied for shooting somebody on the other side of the
door? Anybody could have gotten shot. That bullet
could have hit anybody outside, but that bullet hit
[Fendley]. Unjustifiable.

…

Great bodily harm. And when you look at
that[,] it’s such force necessary to prevent it. That’s
not — he’s over 50 years old, too. And if you take it
back to the old school, the old school is I’ll meet you
outside by the tree. The old school is if I know you
and you’re my friend, I can take you.

The old school is you already were coming in

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and outside of the door. What harm from the day
that he was lying in there in the house being inside
from drinking, from scrapping to all day switched be-
cause you decided you wanted to pick up a gun and
it fire at him while he was on the other side of the
door.

(Emphasis added.)
On appeal, Appellant contends that trial counsel should
have objected to the italicized statements above because the con-
tention that Appellant was “trying to manipulate” the jurors in-
appropriately “personaliz[ed] the verdict for the jurors,” the Girl-
Scout comment indicated that Appellant presented a “future dan-
ger[ ]” to society, the comments about Appellant’s “age and old
school mentality” were “inappropriate,” and all three comments
concerned “facts not in evidence.” But as explained below, each of
these comments fell within the wide latitude afforded to a prose-
cutor during closing argument, any objection would have been
meritless, and Appellant’s claim fails as a result.
First, the context surrounding the prosecutor’s argument
that Appellant was “trying to manipulate” the jury shows that the
prosecutor was simply responding to trial counsel’s closing argu-
ment and arguing that Appellant’s defense theory was unpersua-
sive on its own terms and based on the trial evidence. See Thomp-
son v. State, 318 Ga. 760, 768 (2024) (holding that the prosecutor
did not make an improper argument by “highlighting that [the
defendant’s] theory of the case … was illogical based on the evi-
dence”). Specifically, the prosecutor had drawn on the unex-
plained absence of the murder weapon at the scene to rebut trial
counsel’s contention that Appellant did not know his status as a
first-offender probationer made it unlawful for him to possess a
gun: according to the prosecutor, the jury could infer from the fact

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that police officers were unable to locate the murder weapon that
Appellant had hidden the gun, and that Appellant had hidden the
gun because he knew he was not supposed to have it. And the
prosecutor had further attempted to highlight a tension within
the theory of the defense itself, namely, a tension between trial
counsel’s argument that Appellant accidentally shot Fendley in a
mere attempt to scare him away and trial counsel’s alternative
argument that Appellant was trying to defend himself from Fend-
ley’s aggressive entry into the home. In this context, the prosecu-
tor’s statement in summary that the defense was attempting to
mislead or manipulate the jury fell within the wide latitude af-
forded to prosecutors to draw inferences from the evidence and to
respond to the theory of the defense. See Stryker v. State, 318 Ga.
769, 779–80 (2024) (holding that the trial court did not abuse its
discretion in permitting a prosecutor to argue that “the defense’s
argument was as reasonable as saying that aliens came down and
shot [the victim], that the argument did not compute with com-
mon sense, and that they [the defendant and trial counsel] are
insulting our intelligence” because, in context, the prosecutor was
simply “challenging the reasonableness of the defense theory”
(cleaned up)). See also Moody v. State, 316 Ga. 490, 538 (2023)
(holding that an objection to a prosecutor’s closing remark that
the defense’s argument was “offensive” to the jury would have
been “meritless”).
Second, the record belies Appellant’s contention that the
prosecutor’s Girl-Scout comment was an improper argument
about Appellant’s future dangerousness. “A prosecutor argues fu-
ture dangerousness when the prosecutor asserts there will be
more victims if the defendant is not found guilty, or the commu-
nity or witnesses will be endangered if the defendant is not found
guilty.” Smith v. State, 323 Ga. 246, 254 (2026) (quotation marks
omitted). Here, however, the prosecutor was not commenting on

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Appellant’s future conduct. To the contrary, the prosecutor fo-
cused exclusively on the act of shooting Fendley itself, explaining
that someone knocking loudly on a front door is not adequate jus-
tification for using deadly force, and that shooting through an
opaque front door recklessly endangered anyone who might be
outside — whether that be a Girl Scout selling cookies door-to-
door, Fendley, or another bystander. And that argument was
properly grounded in the trial evidence, which showed that Ap-
pellant shot Fendley shortly after Fendley had knocked loudly on
the door and that another community member (Appellant’s next-
door neighbor) was outside the house and thus at risk of being
shot when Appellant fired through his closed front door. Accord-
ingly, an objection to this comment would have been meritless.
Cf. Smith, 323 Ga. at 254–55 (an objection on “future dangerous-
ness” grounds would have been overruled where the prosecutor
“ma[de] a permissible inference from the evidence” by “suggesting
that [the defendant], who had brazenly killed [the victim] in the
presence of numerous witnesses, might have expected that those
witnesses would be afraid of him and would therefore not testify
against him”).
Finally, Appellant has not shown that an objection to the
prosecutor’s comments about Appellant’s “age” and about “the old
school” would have been sustained. Contrary to Appellant’s argu-
ment, the prosecutor was not arguing facts not in evidence by ref-
erencing Appellant’s age, which was established at trial both
through his criminal record and through Appellant’s police inter-
view. And even assuming Appellant is correct that it would have
been improper for the prosecutor to argue that Appellant had, or
acted in conformity with, an “old school mentality,” the prosecutor
did not make such an argument. The record shows that the pros-
ecutor argued just the opposite — that Appellant’s use of deadly
force showed he did not have, or did not act in conformity with,

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an “old school” mentality, which at most might condone challeng-
ing a person to a physical fight to settle a dispute. 4
Because the objections to the prosecutor’s closing argument
that Appellant contends trial counsel should have made would
have been meritless, he has not shown deficient performance. See
Lee, 317 Ga. at 888. Accordingly, these claims fail.
3. As noted in footnote 1 above, the jury found Appellant
guilty of involuntary manslaughter as a lesser offense of malice
murder. On appeal, Appellant argues that, under Edge v. State,
261 Ga. 865 (1992), the trial court was required to sentence him
for involuntary manslaughter rather than for felony murder pred-
icated on possession of a firearm by a first-offender probationer.
We disagree.
“In Edge, this Court held that, when a defendant is found
guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felony murder premised on
an aggravated assault (both arising from the same assault), the
defendant should be convicted and sentenced only for voluntary
manslaughter.” Anthony v. State, 303 Ga. 399, 402 (2018). “We
reasoned that almost every voluntary manslaughter involves a fe-
lonious assault, and if a verdict that the defendant was guilty of
felony murder premised on aggravated assault were to prevail
over a finding that the defendant also was guilty of voluntary

4 It is unclear precisely what the prosecutor intended to convey when
he said, “The old school is you already were coming in and outside of the door.”
In context, it appears that the comment was an inartful transition from com-
menting on how Appellant’s conduct was not justified even from an “old school”
perspective to arguing that there was no justification for Appellant using
deadly force against Fendley. In any event, there is no indication in this re-
mark that the prosecutor was accusing Appellant of having an “old school men-
tality.”

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manslaughter, it would effectively eliminate voluntary man-
slaughter as a separate form of homicide.” Id. (quotation marks
omitted). “We also explained that culpability for an aggravated
assault is naturally susceptible of mitigation by the sort of provo-
cation and passion that inheres in voluntary manslaughter.” Id.
“We later extended the rule of Edge to instances in which
the felony murder is premised not on aggravated assault, but on
another underlying felony that is equally integral to the homicide
and susceptible of mitigation by the sort of provocation and pas-
sion that voluntary manslaughter involves.” Anthony, 303 Ga. at
402. “We have, however, declined to extend Edge any further than
that.” Id. And we have specifically held that the rule announced
in Edge does not apply to cases like this one, “in which the jury
returns verdicts of felony murder and involuntary manslaughter,”
Kipp v. State, 296 Ga. 250, 252 (2014), or in which the jury returns
a verdict of “felony murder predicated on possession of a firearm
by a first-offender probationer,” Owens v. State, 317 Ga. 125, 125,
127 (2023). Accordingly, this claim fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur.

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