Haywood v. State

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to modification resulting from motions for reconsideration under Supreme Court
Rule 27, the Court’s reconsideration, and editorial revisions by the Reporter of Decisions. The version of the
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official text of the opinion.

In the
Supreme Court of Georgia
No. S26A0022
Brandon Haywood
v.
The State

On Appeal from the Superior Court of Bibb County
No. 2016-CR-74591

Decided: May 19, 2026

BETHEL, Justice.
Brandon Haywood was convicted of malice murder in
connection with the shooting death of Marcus Braswell. 1 On

1 The crimes occurred on October 20, 2016. On December 20, 2016, a
Bibb County grand jury indicted Haywood, Lisa Harris, and Andre Jackson for
malice murder, felony murder, and aggravated assault. Jackson and Harris
entered into negotiated guilty plea agreements with the State and testified
against Haywood at trial. At an April 2018 jury trial, Haywood was found
guilty on all counts. The trial court sentenced Haywood to serve life in prison
without the possibility of parole for malice murder. The trial court purported
to merge felony murder into the malice murder conviction, but the felony
murder count was actually vacated by operation of law. See Washington v.
State, 313 Ga. 771, 772–73 (2022). The trial court also purported to merge the
predicate felony count of aggravated assault into the vacated felony murder
count. The parties do not challenge this error, and it makes no practical
difference. Accordingly, we do not address it here. See Marshall v. State, 309
Ga. 698, 701 (2020).
Haywood, acting pro se, filed a timely motion for new trial on May 7,
2018, which was later amended through new counsel. Following a hearing in
May 2024, the trial court denied the motion, as amended, on July 2, 2025.
appeal, Haywood argues that the trial court erred by rejecting his
Batson 2 challenge and by denying his request to charge the jury
on involuntary manslaughter. For the reasons explained below,
Haywood’s claims fail, so we affirm.
1. The evidence at trial showed the following. On October
20, 2016, Haywood and his co-indictees Lisa Harris and Andre
Jackson decided to rob Braswell, from whom they had purchased
cocaine at his home moments before. All three approached
Braswell’s residence, and when Braswell opened the door, Harris
stepped inside, followed by Jackson and Haywood, who was
carrying Jackson’s gun. Jackson, at Haywood’s instruction,
grabbed Braswell and forced him onto a sofa in the living room.
Haywood then forced Braswell’s girlfriend into the living
room and instructed her to lay face-down on the floor. The
girlfriend heard one of the men say he was going to shoot Braswell
in the face and then heard two gunshots. According to Jackson,
Braswell attempted to grab Haywood’s firearm when Haywood
glanced away, and during the struggle, the gun went off. Haywood
then shot Braswell a second time. An autopsy determined that
Braswell died as a result of gunshot wounds to his face and chest.
2. Haywood first challenges the trial court’s denial of his
Batson motion made in response to the State’s using all nine of
its peremptory strikes to strike black potential jurors. Haywood’s
argument presents no basis for reversal.
A Batson challenge involves a three-step analytical
process. First, “the opponent of a peremptory challenge must

Haywood then filed a timely notice of appeal, which was docketed to the term
of this Court beginning in December 2025 and submitted for a decision on the
briefs.
2 Batson v. Kentucky, 476 US 79 (1986).

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make a prima facie showing of racial discrimination”; second, “the
proponent of the strike must then provide a race-neutral
explanation for the strike”; and third, “the court must decide
whether the opponent of the strike has proven the proponent’s
discriminatory intent.” French v. State, 321 Ga. 665, 666–67
(2025). The trial court here determined that Haywood made a
prima facie showing of racial discrimination because the State
used all of its strikes to eliminate black potential jurors. The trial
court then proceeded to the second step of the Batson inquiry,
requiring the prosecutor to offer explanations for his strikes.
At step two of the inquiry, “the proponent of the strike need
only articulate a facially race-neutral reason for the strike.”
French, 321 Ga. at 667 (quotation marks omitted). As to five of
the jurors, the prosecutor identified their lack of employment as
one reason for striking them. And as to four of those same five
jurors, the prosecutor identified their antagonistic demeanor and
apparent refusal to make eye contact with the prosecutor during
voir dire as an additional reason for striking them. On appeal,
Haywood takes issue with these proffered reasons, 3 arguing that
someone who is unemployed or fails to make eye contact could
nevertheless be an impartial juror and that eye contact is too
subjective to support a strike. Haywood also points to the
conclusion in a scholarly publication that black Americans “make
infrequent eye contact when listening” and asserts that “lack of
eye contact is cultural and race[-]based” such that the
prosecutor’s explanation was not race neutral. But Haywood
misunderstands the second step of the inquiry.
At this step, the sole issue is “the facial validity of the
prosecutor’s explanation.” Toomer v. State, 292 Ga. 49, 54 (2012)

3 Haywood makes no argument regarding the prosecutor’s proffered
reasons for striking the remaining four jurors, so we do not address them.

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(cleaned up; emphasis added). The prosecutor could offer an
explanation that was “superstitious, silly, or implausible” and
nevertheless satisfy his burden of production. Rose v. State, 287
Ga. 238, 241 (2010). See also Purkett v. Elem, 514 US 765, 766
(1995) (accepting as race-neutral the explanation that a juror
“had long hair” and “a mustache and a goatee type beard” and was
struck because “the mustaches and the beards look suspicious” to
the prosecutor). And it is well settled that a prospective juror’s
employment — or lack thereof — is a facially race-neutral basis
for exercising a peremptory strike. See French, 321 Ga. at 667
(“the prospective juror’s employment is race-neutral on its face,
and we have previously held that such a reason is sufficient to
satisfy the prosecutor’s burden under Batson”). A juror’s
demeanor and lack of eye conduct are likewise facially race-
neutral reasons, and Haywood’s reliance on a generalized
statistic about the frequency with which black Americans make
eye contact during conversations does not alter that conclusion.
See Taylor v. State, 303 Ga. 624, 632 (2018) (rejecting argument
that reliance on prospective jurors’ demeanor was “impermissibly
based on speculation and conjuncture” and noting that “both the
United States Supreme Court and this Court have squarely held
that a peremptory strike based upon a juror’s demeanor during
voir dire may be race-neutral at Batson step two”); Toomer, 292
Ga. at 53–54 (recognizing that disinterest during voir dire, body
language, and facial expressions may be race-neutral
explanations for a peremptory strike).
Finally, at step three of the inquiry, “the ultimate burden
of persuasion is on the opponent of the strike to prove
discriminatory intent.” French, 321 Ga. at 667 (cleaned up). We
afford “great deference” to a trial court’s finding on this point,
which “will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous.” Id.
(quotation marks omitted). In arguing this issue below, Haywood

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noted his general disagreement with the validity of the
prosecutor’s proffered reasons for striking the prospective jurors.
The prosecutor replied by detailing his rationale underlying his
decision to strike each prospective juror. Haywood was given an
opportunity to respond to the prosecutor’s explanations, but
again, he expressed only skepticism about the validity of those
explanations and did not cite the research on which he relies on
appeal. Thereafter, the trial court denied Haywood’s Batson
challenge.
Haywood has not shown that the trial court’s ruling was
clearly erroneous. Haywood failed to make any factual arguments
below in support of his broad disagreement with the prosecutor’s
proffered reasons for the strikes, nor did he identify any
circumstances from which the trial court could infer that the
prosecutor acted with discriminatory intent in striking the
prospective jurors. And he does not do so on appeal. See Thomas
v. State, 309 Ga. 488, 490 (2020) (no clear error in trial court’s
finding of no discriminatory intent where appellant “expressed
doubt about the prosecutor’s rationales for using peremptory
strikes” but “failed to make any factual argument in support of
those doubts or in support of his claim that the prosecutor acted
with discriminatory intent”). The trial court, after observing the
challenged jurors’ demeanors and responses during voir dire and
the prosecutor’s demeanor as he explained his reasons for
exercising the peremptory strikes, decided to credit the
prosecutor’s explanations, and we see no basis for disturbing that
decision. See French, 321 Ga. at 668 (“[W]hether to credit the
prosecutor’s proffered race-neutral explanation … necessarily
entailed an evaluation of the prosecutor’s state of mind based on
demeanor and credibility; that evaluation lies peculiarly within a
trial judge’s province[.]” (cleaned up)).

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3. In his remaining claim of error, Haywood argues that the
trial court erred by denying his request to charge the jury on
involuntary manslaughter as a lesser-included offense of felony
murder. However, the felony murder count was vacated by
operation of law, so Haywood’s claim of error related to a jury
instruction on the felony murder count is moot. See Snipes v.
State, 309 Ga. 785, 790 n.4 (2020).
To the extent Haywood asserts that the trial court erred by
refusing to charge the jury on involuntary manslaughter as a
lesser-included offense of malice murder, for which he was
convicted and sentenced, 4 he is unable to show harm. Even
assuming there was slight evidence justifying an instruction on
involuntary manslaughter, “a jury-instruction error is harmless
when it is highly probable that the error did not contribute to the
verdict.” McClain v. State, 303 Ga. 6, 9 (2018). Here, the jury
could not find Haywood guilty of involuntary manslaughter
unless it found that he did not intend to kill Braswell. See OCGA
§ 16-5-3 (“A person commits the offense of involuntary
manslaughter in the commission of an unlawful act when he
causes the death of another human being without any intention
to do so by the commission of an unlawful act other than a felony.
… A person commits the offense of involuntary manslaughter in
the commission of a lawful act in an unlawful manner when he
causes the death of another human being without any intention
to do so, by the commission of a lawful act in an unlawful manner
likely to cause death or great bodily harm.”). But the jury found
Haywood guilty of malice murder, which means it found that he

4 Haywood’s bare-bones brief is unclear on this point. He specifically
argues that the trial court should have charged the jury on involuntary
manslaughter as a lesser-included offense of felony murder, but he also argues
more generally that the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on
involuntary manslaughter.

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did intend to kill Braswell. See OCGA § 16-5-1(a) (“A person
commits the offense of murder when he unlawfully and with
malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death
of another human being.”). And the evidence strongly supports
that finding. So it was highly likely that the jury would not have
found Haywood guilty of involuntary manslaughter even if it had
been instructed on that option. See Mann v. State, 307 Ga. 696,
700 (2020) (“The jury, by also finding appellant guilty of malice
murder, made an additional specific finding that appellant
intended the victim’s killing. In light of these circumstances, it is
highly probable that the trial court’s refusal to give a charge on
involuntary manslaughter did not contribute to the verdict.”
(cleaned up)). Accordingly, this enumeration fails.
Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Warren,
P. J., not participating.

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