Court Opinion

ID: 9593744
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:24:34.753415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:22.104397
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
In following the requirements of OCGA § 5-6-37 concerning the contents of a notice of appeal, appellant stated that “[t]ranscript of evidence and proceedings will not be filed for inclusion in the record on appeal.” The reason was given: “The record for this case is already before the Court in the matter of Michael Kelleher, Sr. and Michael Kelleher, Jr. vs. State, Court of Appeals Docket No. 75290.” As later *812shown, what appellant attempted to do was save transcript and copying costs by utilizing her companions’ case record, which she believed would be adequate because of the nature of the errors she wished us to review, and the nature of her trial.
Appellant’s non-jury trial was before the same judge who had presided at her husband’s and son’s joint trial. By agreement of both parties and the court, she was tried on the transcript and exhibits of her companions’ trial, as summarized by a narration, and stipulation of additional facts. The motions and rulings from the other cases were also adopted by stipulation. Based on the stipulated evidence, the court found appellant guilty. The other record was not actually tendered in evidence but was known by the judge.
When the appeal was docketed here, appellant moved us to adopt the record (meaning also the trial transcript) and appeal documents in the companions’ case, explaining why this should be allowed and believing that the transcript of her own perfunctory trial would be unnecessary. The motion, made in reliance on OCGA § 5-6-44, was denied. Thus we refused to take judicial notice of that record, transcript, and appeal documents which are in this court, in considering her appeal.
Appellant them moved to amend the notice of appeal and supplement the record with the transcript of her own short trial so that this court would “not dismiss or affirm without reaching the merits.” This transcript was filed here the next day.
I agree with the dissent, that we should not of our own initiative generally “require that additional portions of the record or transcript of proceedings be sent up, or require that a complete transcript of evidence and proceedings be prepared and sent up. . . .” OCGA § 5-6-48 (d). However, here we are not reaching out and perfecting the appeal when the party has been lax and not acted. To the contrary, appellant, having received our declination to consider her case on the other record, has simply asked for permission to amend her notice so that the superior court clerk would transmit the trial transcript and record as provided by OCGA § 5-6-41 (e), to supplement the judgment and sentence which appellant had originally asked for and the clerk had sent.
We have already informally set the filing in motion, and we should not backtrack. Nor should we ignore the transcript which the clerk has transmitted even without an amended notice of appeal, nor cause appellant the very expense she was trying to avoid, without even ruling on the merits of her appeal. Authority is provided to us by OCGA § 5-6-48 (d), see State v. Pike, 253 Ga. 304 (320 SE2d 355) (1984), as in effect a dismissal of her appeal will occur whether we dismiss it for failure to perfect the appeal with a transcript and complete record or we affirm the judgment for lack of the proper tools to *813review the errors enumerated. There is no conflicting departure here from the authorities cited in the dissent.
Several other factors also weigh in favor of granting her requests. No harm has been claimed by appellee should appellant’s motion be granted. The policy expressed in OCGA § 5-6-30 lays a hand on that side of the scale. More is added by the prospect of final resolution of appellant’s case if the merits are reached now. What tips the scale is fairness. Appellant will continue under sentence when the sentences of her two companions, who were the principal offenders (the State admitted at trial that its evidence only showed her to be a consumer of drugs and perhaps marginally an aider and abettor), have been reversed on a question of law which she also raises.
That brings us to the question of whether or not we should consider the relevant case papers in Case Numbers 75290, Kelleher, Jr. v. State, and 75291, Kelleher, Sr. v. State. Although the majority originally denied the motion that we do so, it implicitly agrees now to take judicial notice of them because the trial court did, insofar as the co-defendants’ trial court record and trial transcript were concerned. Although a bit unorthodox, no harm is shown by our doing so. The Supreme Court used the record from one case in two other cases, by stipulation, and without complaint of the Court, in Howard v. Eatonton Co-op Feed Co., 226 Ga. 788, 789 Par. 3 (177 SE2d 658) (1970). It would be uselessly wasteful of time and money to insist that appellant should have had copied and offered in evidence below, and transmitted here again, the entire record and transcript in the companions’ case, when both the trial court and we have it.
As shown by the opinion in Division 2, with which I concur in judgment only, we are clearly able to reach the merits of appellant’s dispositive enumeration of error.