Court Opinion

ID: 9582503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:28:02.153176+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:53.232304
License: Public Domain

Ruffin, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the affirmance of the judgment of conviction only because the evidence was overwhelming; thus, the trial court’s erroneous admission of Chappell’s prior conviction was harmless. See Watkins v. State, 206 Ga. App. 701, 704 (1) (426 SE2d 238) (1992). However, I write separately because I do not agree that we can ignore the test set forth in Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640, 642 (2) (409 SE2d 649) (1991) on the admissibility of prior transactions in any case, and substitute in lieu thereof a test which turns on the degree to which evidence of prior transactions would be helpful to the jury, and whether the State’s need outweighs prejudice to the defendant.
The third prong of the Williams test requires “a sufficient connection or similarity between the independent offense or act and the crime charged so that proof of the former tends to prove the latter. [Cit.]” Id. at 642. While the prior offense need not be identical, “the evidence must be relevant for some purpose other than to show the probability that [Chappell] committed the crime for which he is on trial because he is a person of criminal character. [Cit.]” Morris v. State, 212 Ga. App. 779, 780 (1) (442 SE2d 792) (1994).
The trial court admitted the prior conviction to show course of conduct and modus operandi. However, Chappell’s prior conviction “did not tend to establish . . . the purposes to which the court confined it.” Burney v. State, 201 Ga. App. 64, 65 (1) (410 SE2d 172) (1991). Instead the evidence demonstrates that the prior crime was significantly different. As a consequence, there was “no logical connection so that proof of the independent [crime] tended to establish the crime charged, except by raising an inference that appellant, who had [violated the Georgia Controlled Substances Act with cocaine] on [a] prior [occasion], was likely to have committed the [crime] being tried. The three affirmative showings required by Williams were not and could not have been made.” Radford v. State, 202 Ga. App. 532, 535 (2) (415 SE2d 34) (1992); Lumpkin v. State, 205 Ga. App. 68 (3) (421 SE2d 100) (1992). Accordingly, the trial court erred in admitting the prior conviction.
*600Decided November 29, 1994
Reconsideration denied December 13, 1994.
Edith M. Edwards, for appellant.
H. Lamar Cole, District Attorney, James E. Hardy, Mark E. Mitchell, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.