Painter v. State

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official text of the opinion.




                                                   In the
                              Supreme Court of Georgia
                                              No. S26A0382
                                             Gregory Painter
                                                    v.
                                                The State

                           On Appeal from the Superior Court of Fulton County
                                            No. 20SC176843

                                           Decided: April 21, 2026


                     BETHEL, Justice.
                     Gregory Painter was convicted of malice murder and other
             crimes in connection with the shooting death of his father, James
             Painter. 1 On appeal, Painter raises only one argument: that the
             trial court erred by denying his request to instruct the jury on his
             sole defense of insanity. Because there was not even slight
             evidence to support giving the instructions he requested, Painter
             has failed to establish error, so we affirm.


                     1 The crimes occurred on April 16, 2020. On November 20, 2020, a
             Fulton County grand jury indicted Painter 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 November 2024 jury trial,
             Painter was found guilty on all counts. The court sentenced Painter to serve
             life in prison without the possibility of parole on Count 1 and a consecutive
             term of five years on Count 4. The remaining counts were vacated or merged.
             Painter filed a timely motion for new trial on November 14, 2024, which was
             later amended. The parties waived a hearing, and the trial court denied the
             motion, as amended, on September 10, 2025. Painter then filed a timely notice
             of appeal, and his case was docketed to this Court’s term beginning in
             December 2025 and submitted for a decision on the briefs.
       1. The evidence at trial showed the following. On April 16,
2020, Painter and James began arguing over text messages that
Painter had sent to his sister’s friend and that James considered
inappropriate. Painter had been drinking and reportedly had a
history of mental illness. Painter’s mother heard Painter yelling
and came into the living room where Painter and James were
arguing, at which point Painter began yelling and directing
profanities at her. James then told her to go into the kitchen and
told Painter to go upstairs to his room to rest, but Painter
continued yelling. Painter’s mother told Painter that he needed to
calm down or they were going to call the police. The argument
culminated in Painter yelling at James about an affair James
participated in a decade earlier before producing a handgun and
shooting James in the face seven times, killing him.
       Immediately following the shooting, Painter’s mother
called 911 and asked Painter what he was going to do, to which
Painter responded, “Don’t worry, Mom. It’s going to be okay.”
Painter then picked up some of the shell casings, went upstairs
with the handgun, returned downstairs without the handgun,
and went outside to smoke until police arrived. When police
arrived, Painter was calm and compliant as they placed him
under arrest. Police found multiple shell casings on Painter’s
person and a bloody handgun in his room. Police also found
handwritten notes strewn around Painter’s bedroom, including
one that referenced his father attacking a child with pliers.
       Painter filed a pre-trial notice of intent to raise an insanity
defense, alleging that he either lacked the mental capacity to
distinguish right from wrong, see OCGA § 16-3-2, or acted as he
did because of a delusional compulsion, see OCGA § 16-3-3.
Though the trial court ordered a mental evaluation to determine
Painter’s criminal responsibility at the time of the crimes, Painter




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refused to submit to the evaluation.
       In his pre-trial requests to charge, Painter sought multiple
jury charges relating to both forms of the insanity defense: the
mental capacity defense and the delusional compulsion defense. 2
The State objected to these requested charges on the basis that
Painter presented no evidence showing that he acted “under any
type of mental illness at the time of the incident” and emphasized
that Painter failed to present expert testimony tending to show
that he suffered from a mental illness or even lay testimony that
he acted under a delusion. The trial court refused to give the
requested instructions, finding no evidence that, at the time of the
shooting, Painter was suffering from a delusional compulsion or
that he was unable to distinguish right from wrong. Rather, the
court reasoned that the evidence indicated that Painter became
angry with James and killed him and, further, that “being
mentally ill” or “having some sort of personality disorder” is not
equivalent to legal insanity that negates criminal responsibility.
Painter objected to the instructions’ omission at the charge
conference and again after the jury was charged.
      2. Asserting that his only defense to the charged crimes
was insanity, Painter contends that the trial court erred by failing
to give his requested instructions on insanity. 3 “A request to


        2 Among others, Painter requested the following pattern jury
instructions: (1) 3.80.10 Insanity at Time of Commission of Offense; (2) 3.80.20
Insanity at Time of Act (Right and Wrong); (3) 3.80.30 Insanity, Delusional; (4)
3.80.40 Insanity, Mentally Ill at Time of Alleged Act; and (5) 3.80.60 Insanity,
Consider Evidence as a Whole. He also requested a non-pattern instruction
stating, “The act itself may be so utterly senseless and abnormal as to furnish
satisfactory proof of a diseased mind. Brown v. State, 228 Ga. 215 (1971).”
        3 Painter preserved this claim for ordinary appellate review by
renewing his objection to the trial court’s refusal to instruct the jury on
insanity after the charge was given. See OCGA § 17-8-58(a).




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charge must be legal, apt, and precisely adjusted to some
principle involved in the case and be authorized by the evidence.”
Hudson v. State, 308 Ga. 443, 445 (2020) (quotation marks
omitted). A trial court is authorized to give a requested jury
instruction as long as slight evidence supports the theory of the
charge. See id. See also Reese v. State, 289 Ga. 446, 449 n.3 (2011)
(“A charge on the defendant’s sole defense is mandatory only if
there is some evidence to support it[.]”), overruled on other
grounds by State v. Lane, 308 Ga. 10, 23 (2020). Whether there
was slight evidence to support a jury charge is a legal question
that we review de novo. See Hudson, 308 Ga. at 445. We agree
with the trial court that there was not even slight evidence to
support the jury charges requested here.
       “In Georgia, a defendant is presumed to be sane. To
overcome this presumption, a defendant wishing to assert an
insanity defense has the burden to prove by a preponderance of
the evidence that he was insane at the time the crime was
committed.” Jackson v. State, 301 Ga. 878, 881 (2017). Georgia
law recognizes two forms of the insanity defense: the mental
capacity defense and the delusional compulsion defense. See
Brookins v. State, 315 Ga. 86, 98–99 (2022) (highlighting
distinction between the two forms of an insanity defense). To
prove the mental capacity defense, a defendant must show that,
“at the time of the act, omission, or negligence constituting the
crime, the [defendant] did not have mental capacity to distinguish
between right and wrong in relation to such act.” OCGA § 16-3-2.
And to prove the delusional compulsion defense, a defendant
must show that, “at the time of the act, omission, or negligence
constituting the crime, the [defendant], because of mental
disease, injury, or congenital deficiency, acted as he did because
of a delusional compulsion as to such act which overmastered his
will to resist committing the crime.” OCGA § 16-3-3. The




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delusional compulsion defense is available only when the
defendant “was compelled by his delusion to act in a manner that
would have been lawful and right if the facts had been as he
imagined them to be.” Hood v. State, 311 Ga. 855, 868 (2021)
(cleaned up).
        Turning first to the mental capacity defense, Painter
makes much of evidence that, he says, demonstrates he suffered
from a mental illness, including testimony from his sister
regarding his mental illness and related treatment attempts, his
mother’s statement to the 911 operator that Painter “just went
crazy,” and notes found in his room that he characterizes as “the
scribblings of a madman.” But mere evidence that a defendant
suffered from a mental illness does not entitle the defendant to
an instruction on the mental capacity defense. See Lawrence v.
State, 265 Ga. 310, 312 (1995) (“Legal insanity is not established
by a medical diagnosis that an individual suffers from a mental
illness such as a psychosis.”); State v. Abernathy, 289 Ga. 603,
607–08 (2011) (“mental abnormality, unless it amounts to
insanity, is not a defense to a crime” (cleaned up)); Durrence v.
State, 287 Ga. 213, 216 (2010) (“Our statutes and case law make
a clear distinction between being insane at the time of the crime
and being mentally ill … , each requiring different forms of
proof.”). Nor does testimony that a defendant appeared mentally
ill at the time of the crimes entitle him to such an instruction
because, again, such testimony does not constitute evidence of
legal insanity. See Hudson, 308 Ga. at 447 (testimony that
defendant was “acting crazy” at the time of the alleged offense did
not constitute evidence of legal insanity); Phillips v. State, 255
Ga. 539, 542 (1986) (defendant not entitled to instruction on
insanity defense despite testimony that he had “mad,” “wild,” and
“unnormal” look).




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       Rather, to secure such an instruction, a defendant must
present evidence showing “that he lacked the mental capacity to
distinguish between right and wrong at the time” he committed
the crimes. Jackson, 301 Ga. at 881. On this point, Painter relies
solely on his statement to his mother after the crimes that “[i]t’s
going to be okay,” arguing that “[t]his response is anything but
normal” and shows that he “may not have known that his
behavior was wrongful.” But as the testimony of Painter’s mother
makes clear, this statement was made in response to her asking
Painter what he was going to do after the shooting — his
statement was forward-looking, was obviously intended to
reassure his mother, and says nothing about his ability, or lack
thereof, to distinguish right from wrong at the time he shot his
father, especially in light of evidence that, after making this
statement, Painter took efforts to conceal both the handgun and
shell casings before police arrived. Under these circumstances,
the trial court did not err by refusing to instruct the jury on the
mental capacity defense. See id.
       There likewise was no error in the trial court’s refusal to
instruct the jury on the delusional compulsion defense. “A finding
of insanity based upon OCGA § 16-3-3 requires proof that (1) the
accused acted under a delusional compulsion; (2) the criminal act
was connected with the delusion; and (3) the delusion related to a
fact which, if true, would have justified the act.” Webb v. State,
270 Ga. 556, 557 (1999). Here, the only such delusion Painter
identifies appears in his undated, nearly illegible handwritten
scribbles and says something to the effect that Painter’s father
“took pliers to the kid[’]s head.” Not only is there no evidence that,
at the time of the shooting, Painter was under the delusion that
his father at some point in the past “took pliers” to a child’s head
and that he shot his father in connection with that delusion, but
that belief would not have justified shooting his father. See




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Pearson v. State, 277 Ga. 813, 814 (2004) (“The law will not justify
a killing for deliberate revenge however grievous the past wrong
may have been. The defense of justification is not so broad as to
permit a private citizen to mete out judgment as he sees fit.”
(cleaned up)).
       Painter resists this conclusion, arguing that, as in Brown
v. State, 228 Ga. 215, 217 (1971), the murder here was “so utterly
senseless and abnormal as to furnish satisfactory proof of a
diseased mind” as to entitle him to an instruction to this effect, as
well as on the delusional compulsion defense. Essentially, it
appears Painter reads Brown for the proposition that the mere
fact of murder, standing alone, could support a delusional
compulsion instruction. Painter is incorrect.
       In Brown, the defendant stalked the woman she believed
to be her husband’s mistress for several hours before shooting her,
and we concluded that the trial court erred by refusing to give a
delusional compulsion instruction because there was expert
testimony that would have authorized the jury to find that the
defendant was suffering from delusional insanity, and a jury
could find that the delusion under which the defendant said she
suffered would, if true, have justified the killing. See id. at 216–
19. (“[W]here a continuing adulterous affair exists, as opposed to
mere past acts of misconduct, if a jury believes the killing was
done to prevent future misconduct, an acquittal is authorized.”).4
But here, Painter does not point to any such evidence showing


        4 We express no opinion as to whether Brown was correctly decided.
Cf. Brown, 228 Ga. at 221–22 (Felton, J., dissenting) (noting that the majority
opinion “overlooks a crucial distinction and limitation recognized and imposed
by the courts of this State, i.e., that the danger of any ‘future’ adulterous act
must be impending, imminent, immediate, urgent and pressing at the time of
the killing for such killing to be justified”).




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that he acted under a delusion that, if true, would have justified
shooting his father. Accordingly, an instruction on the “mental
disease” aspect of the delusional compulsion defense would not
have been adjusted to any principle involved in the case. See
Hudson, 308 Ga. at 445.
        Judgment affirmed. All the Justices concur, except Warren,
P. J., not participating.




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