Published 10:35 am Wednesday, October 28, 2026 ATLANTA — The Georgia Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week in the appeal of a Tift County murder case. In March 2025, Antavio Pierce was convicted of murder in connection with the shooting death of Vincent Myers on July 17, 2023. His appeal describes the confrontation this way: Antavio Pierce and Vincent Myers hated each other. They spent years fighting over a woman. When Pierce saw Myers at the gas station, he pulled up to him in his pickup truck. The State said, “What happened was contemporaneous in terms of the drawing of the weapons.” They started shooting. But Myers had badly injured his right hand three weeks earlier while knocking Pierce unconscious at the same gas station. So Myers shot with his left hitting Pierce’s ankle. Pierce shot Myers in the chest, and Myers died. In his appeal, Pierce argues the trial court should have told the jury it could convict him of a lesser charge, manslaughter based on mutual combat, and he argues that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request that instruction. The State, represented by the Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General of Georgia, argues that a charge of voluntary manslaughter based on mutual combat was not supported by the evidence—and if the trial court’s denial was in error, that error did not affect the jury’s decision in the case. The State further argues that Pierce’s trial counsel was not…
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