Macon woman convicted of murdering boyfriend’s other girlfriend denied a new trial
Georgia Supreme Court justices denied a Macon woman’s request for a new trial Tuesday after she was convicted of murder in the death of a woman who had a relationship with her boyfriend, according to court records.
Jurors convicted Brandi Dixon of felony murder for the death of Ebony Smith in July 2018, and she was sentenced to life in prison as a result.
Dixon requested the new trial in 2022, arguing that the evidence presented, her attorneys, and the judge who heard the case all were ineffective. Superior Court Judge David Mincey III rejected Dixon’s request previously, but she appealed all the way to the state’s high court.
What happened the day of Smith’s death?
The man Dixon was dating at the time of the killing was also seeing Smith, though Dixon didn’t know, according to court records.
Before Smith died, she and Dixon attended a party at the man’s house in Macon. During that party, Dixon held a large kitchen knife and threatened to kill someone, according to court records.
Smith left the party to go to a store, but when she returned, she saw Dixon approaching her. Dixon asked Smith if she attended the man’s party, and Smith said that was her boyfriend, court records say. A dispute ensued. Smith grabbed a pistol from her car and fired it in the air.
Smith and her friend went to a store, but when they returned to where Smith parked her car, they noticed Dixon, who approached them.
“Oh, so you’re going to shoot me over (a) man,” Dixon said before she stabbed Smith in the chest, leading to her death, according to court records. Dixon then fled.
Bystanders removed the magazine from Smith’s gun and fled, court records say. A friend of Smith then called 911. When interviewed by responders, they noticed Dixon bleeding from her forehead, but they described it as a minor cut rather than a bullet wound.
Grand jurors indicted Dixon on charges malice murder and felony murder based on aggravated assault, but Dixon was only convicted of felony murder at trial, according to court records.
Dixon argued after the trial that the evidence presented at trial was not constitutionally sufficient to support her conviction, her attorneys were ineffective by advising her not to testify at trial, and that the judge in her trial abused their discretion by overruling her objections and requests to strike.
Justices: ‘Dixon has not met her burden.’
After reviewing all the evidence shown in the trial, as well as reading through Dixon’s request, the Georgia Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Dixon.
Dixon claimed throughout her trial that she stabbed Smith in self-defense, and prosecutors didn’t disprove that. She argued that Smith was the aggressor, which she believed corroborated testimony in which the victim took out her pistol and fired it before Dixon brandished her knife, according to court records.
“But the jury was authorized to disbelieve that testimony and to instead credit other evidence showing that Dixon did not act in self-defense,” the justices said in the ruling. “Dixon initiated encounters with Smith and her family, which authorized the jury to infer that Dixon suspected that Smith was in a relationship with (the man).”
Further evidence also showed that Dixon was seen with a knife before her encounter with Smith, threatening to kill, according to court records. During the confrontation, two men held Smith’s friend back as Smith shot the gun in the air and Dixon stabbed the victim.
Justices also ruled that Dixon’s attorneys weren’t ineffective because, even though she expressed wanting to testify, she didn’t explain why her attorneys argued against testifying, nor did she share what she would have said when testifying. The justices say there was no evidence indicating that the lawyer’s actions were unreasonable.
Lastly, the justices didn’t find that the judge erred in the trial, and if they did, it was “harmless,” according to their ruling.
Dixon had argued that the judge wrongly overruled an objection about testimony from Smith’s sister, and that not enough information was provided in trial about Dixon’s injury during the altercation.
Dixon will now have to serve her life sentence in Pulaski State Prison, according to inmate logs from the Georgia Department of Corrections.
