Court Opinion

ID: 9616632
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:48:20.154561+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:59.450381
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent to the overruling of Witt v. State, 231 Ga. 4 (200 SE2d 112), a unanimous decision of this court on September 6,1973, and to the earlier cases decided by this court followed in Witt, which the majority opinion concedes to be controlling in this case.
The defendant complains in the present appeal that the jury was never told in general or specific terms that if they found the homicide justifiable it would be their duty to acquit the defendant. Until the present case came along, I thought it was well established that when justifiable homicide was in issue, under the evidence for *613the state or the defendant, the trial court had a duty to inform the jury that if the jury believed the defendant was justified they must acquit the defendant.
In Witt, the Court of Appeals held the absence of such an instruction to be harmless error but this court granted certiorari and reversed because of the conflict in the decision of the Court of Appeals with earlier decisions of this court which are now being overruled. The majority opinion in this case holds the failure to give this instruction was not harmless error, but rather, that it was not error at all.
So, in less than two years we have three different views announced by the appellate courts for the guidance of the trial courts. The first is that the trial court’s failure to give an instruction on justifiable homicide when it is in issue may be harmless error under the circumstances of a particular case. The second view is that the absence of such an instruction is reversible error. The third and latest view is that the failure to give such an instruction is not error, period!
Intellectual candor compels me to suggest that perhaps the most sensible and fairer view would be that such a charge should be given whenever justifiable homicide is in issue, but that the failure to give it might be harmless under the facts of a particular case. However, rather than vacillate between conflicting views on a common, recurring issue of this kind, I believe it is better for all of us who are trying to apply the law on some rational and consistent basis to follow the rule of stare decisis absent some constitutional or other highly compelling demand requiring a change. This court applied the rule of stare decisis in Witt by following its earlier decisions and reversing the Court of Appeals. That is what I would do now in the interest of promoting some consistency and stability in the law. I believe it is important for the trial judges to feel they can rely on prior decisions of this court in the trial of cases rather than expect some surprise package in the mail announcing a new rule every several months after they have tried the case.
I dissent.