Court Opinion

ID: 9583889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:42:55.154225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:16.102270
License: Public Domain

Smith, Justice,
dissenting.
1. “It is an insult to intelligent people to say that a scientific test was conducted from which absolutely no notes or records survive. Unless of course the omission was deliberate. . . . The majority opinion condones the performance and use of haphazard, hasty, inaccurate, unreliable and undocumented tests by the state where a man’s liberty is at stake.” Law v. State, 251 Ga. 525, 530 (307 SE2d 904) (1983) (Smith, J., dissenting).
“[T]he reasoning of the majority [in Law, supra] might in some other case result in an intentional frustration of the plain purpose of OCGA § 17-7-211 (Code Ann. § 27-1303). If the result of a scientific procedure must be reduced to writing in order to be subject to discovery, then the statute may be ignored with impunity, by the failure of the examiner to prepare a report.” Law, supra at 531. (Weltner, J., dissenting).
It is disturbing to contemplate that our dissents in Law may have served as primers for prosecutors in methods by which they might circumvent the requirements of OCGA § 17-7-211, and frustrate the fact-finding process and the intent of the legislature.
Two years, three months, and four days elapsed between the date of the crime in this case and the date that the hair and blood sample was sent to the crime lab. Two years and four days elapsed between the date of the indictment and the date that the sample was sent to the crime lab. The prosecution offered no excuse for the delay.
This delay either constitutes “an intentional frustration” of the defendant’s right to examine scientific evidence which will be used against him, or a hideous dereliction of duty on behalf of the prosecution resulting in a denial of the defendant’s right, and a corruption of the fact-finding process.1 The court should condemn, not condone, *495such behavior on the part of the state. Neither should the court attempt to distance itself from its rule of interpretation created in Law by passing the buck to the legislature. “Thus doubly haloed the rule becomes judicially untouchable.” Traynor, “Quo Vadis, Prospective Overruling: A Question of Judicial Responsibility,” 28 Hastings L.J. 533, 540 (1977).
Decided March 4, 1986.
Stephen H. Harris, for appellant.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., District Attorney, David T. Lock, Assistant District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, J. Michael Davis, Staff Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
2. In addition, the defendant set out an additional ground for reversal in Division 1. As stated by Justice Weltner in his dissent in Perry v. Mitchell, 253 Ga. 593 (322 SE2d 273) (1984), there is no excuse to hold a man for two years, three months, and two days between his arrest and his trial.
No one should be proud of the way justice was administered in this case.
I am authorized to state that Justice Weltner joins in this dissent.

 At best, the delay sanctioned by Law, supra, will result in hasty filing and test procedures, as seen in Law. Rushed proceedings could lead to errors in filing, in the chain of control, in the tests themselves, or in the interpretation of tests. In such a situation, the defendant’s right of cross-examination becomes acutely important to the fact-finding process.