Court Opinion

ID: 9571814
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:35:23.194407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:31:02.940071
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
The majority holds that a husband adopts his wife’s statements as his own simply by gesturing for her to be quiet. Because this holding is neither logically nor factually supportable, I write separately in affirming the convictions.
The majority’s holding that a husband’s request of his wife to “shut up” actually means, as a matter of law, that he agrees with his wife is a remarkable interpretation of such an exchange. The relevant question for determining the admissibility of an alleged adoptive admission is “does the silence or conduct of the party, naturally and according to human experience, amount, under the circumstances, to an admission of what is said in his presence?”2
3The defendant’s gesturing to his wife for her to stop talking to a neighbor about his brother does not naturally mean that he agrees with what she is saying. In fact, the usual human experience would consider such a gesture to mean that the husband disagrees with his wife’s comments.
To the extent that Gordon v. State3 supports the vast expansion of the use of adoptive admissions in a criminal trial, contrary to Jarrett v. State,4 it should be overruled.
While these statements were erroneously admitted, the error was harmless in that the statements were not directly inculpatory and were cumulative of other evidence regarding the difficult relationship between the brothers.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein joins in this special concurrence.

 Giles v. Vandiver, 91 Ga. 192 (2) (17 SE 115) (1893).

 273 Ga. 373, 374 (2) (541 SE2d 376) (2001).

 265 Ga. 28, 29 (453 SE2d 461) (1995) (“a witness in a criminal trial may not testify as to a declarant’s statements based on the acquiescence or silence of the accused”).