ATLANTA — A murder conviction and life sentence has been upheld for a man in the 2015 drive-by shooting death of a 15-year-old girl whose father described as "my angel."
The Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday in the appeal of Muhammad Hassan, who was charged with murder as the driver in the drive-by that left Amira Cameron dead at a Union City apartment complex in 2015.
Hassan had argued that the trial court improperly allowed hearsay evidence regarding a prior drive-by shooting against him and that it erred in failing to instruct a jury about a "heightened burden of proof" under Georgia law that, the Supreme Court wrote, "requires the exclusion of every reasonable hypothesis other than guilt when the case against the accused rests entirely on circumstantial evidence."
The Court disagreed on both points, saying it was "not so obvious that the evidence was hearsay such that the trial court should have intervened" to exclude it, and that his rights were not violated when the jury was instructed in language not exactly identical as it is written under Georgia law.
Cameron was shot and killed by an unknown individual in a car on a Sunday night in October 2015. Prosecutors said Hassan and another convicted defendant, Jamaris Zinnerman, were in the car that drove past a group Cameron was hanging out with, then turned around to fire on them.
Union City Police said the group was targeted in the drive-by shooting because one person standing with them was a member of an opposing gang. Cameron, authorities said, was an innocent bystander who had no gang associations.
"She was my angel," Horace Cameron, Amira's father told 11Alive News at the time of the shooting. "I'm just really grieving right now. I don't know - understand how this happened ... she was so young."
Police were originally able to track down Hassan and Zinnerman because Zinnerman was struck in the back by return gunfire and Hassan - the driver of the car - took him to the hospital.
Surveillance footage from Atlanta Medical Center showed the two arriving at the facility. Zinnerman was also wearing an ankle monitor while under probation that placed him at the scene of the crime. Three others in the car at the time were never identified or found.
Amira’s mother, Delabia Cameron, later started a nonprofit called MiraMira90 that works to help the families of victims of gun violence.
“This is costly - gun violence is - any way you look at it, is very costly. It’s not a win-win situation," Delabia said. "Yes, we have closure, but its not a win-win, I have a son to raise and I have nieces and I have nephews, so it’s still a cycle that we have to deal with to keep our loved ones from going down that hole."
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