Attorney Ryan Malone Secures Acquittal in a Murder Case

Macon, Georgia: In October 2025, attorneys Ryan Malone and J. Travis Griffin obtained an acquittal for a 16-year-old. The Defendant was accused of being a party to a conspiracy to commit an armed robbery that ended with another young man shot to death.  He was indicted for murder, felony murder, conspiracy to commit armed robbery and firearms crimes.

The Defendant was enjoying a relaxed summer when he reconnected with an old friend and met some of that friend’s friends. While driving his friend and new acquaintances around one day, the Defendant was told of a plan to pick up some money from someone before meeting some young women to hang out.  Seeing this as a normal errand to do before going out, the Defendant drove his new friends to an apartment complex at their direction without question.  Moments after the friends went into the complex, the Defendant heard gunshots and saw his friends running back to the car, where they instructed him to drive away.

When the Defendant questioned the others about the gunshots, they insisted that they heard them too and that the shots were the reason for them running back to the car.  What the Defendant did not know was that the others had summoned a drug dealer to the door of his apartment with a knock and then executed him by shooting him multiple times through the closed door as he looked through the peephole.

Days later, after the Defendant’s car was identified, he was arrested and charged with murder and other crimes.  He and three others were eventually indicted for these alleged crimes.

Attorney Malone filed a speedy trial demand, and the Defendant went to trial just four months after the shooting.  Mr. Malone thoroughly cross-examined the State’s witnesses and the cooperating codefendant to show that the State’s theory of the case—that the incident was an armed robbery gone wrong—was contradicted by forensics and prior statements by the cooperating codefendant.  The Defendant also took the stand and told the jury about his actions and decisions, what he knew about the situation, and when he knew it.

The jury deliberated for twenty minutes before coming back with a verdict of “not guilty” on all counts.  The three remaining codefendants continue to await trial.