Court Opinion

ID: 9571738
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:34:48.984857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:53.612913
License: Public Domain

Pope, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
Although I reach the same conclusion as the majority with respect to Division 6,1 write separately to clarify the defendant’s argument and why it fails under the circumstances of this case. The defendant does not assert in this enumeration of error that his Miranda rights were violated or that his pre-trial statements were not voluntarily made. Rather, he contends that even though these statements were knowingly and voluntarily made, they should nonetheless have been excluded because the State did not provide him with a copy of the statements as required by OCGA § 17-7-210.
The defendant raised this issue below in a motion in limine, and after hearing evidence and argument, the trial court ruled that the State’s failure to comply with OCGA § 17-7-210 did not compel exclusion of the statements in question because defendant was not in custody when he made them. At the hearing on the motion, two detectives testified that they went to defendant’s home one evening. They drove an unmarked car, they wore plain clothes and their guns and handcuffs were not in sight. When the detectives told defendant they wanted to question him about a series of burglaries and related forgeries they were investigating, defendant accompanied the detectives to their car. The detectives read defendant his Miranda rights because he was a subject of their investigation, but they told defendant that they were there to investigate, not to arrest him, and that regardless of what he said or did not say that night, he would be spending the night in his own home. Defendant admitted playing a role in the forgeries, willingly giving the officers a statement which *522placed most of the blame for the burglaries and forgeries on another man. He later went with the detectives to the South Precinct so they could record his statement. In the course of his statements, defendant admitted that he drove the car registered in his wife’s name and that no one else drove it; referred to the vehicle several times as “my car”; and talked about using it on two specific occasions, once that day and once several days earlier. It is these incriminating admissions defendant sought to exclude. Defendant was not arrested that night, and the detectives took him home after his taped statement was complete. Both detectives testified that defendant went with them voluntarily and that he could have left the car or the precinct at any time. Although defense counsel suggested the detectives threatened defendant and his family if he did not cooperate, defendant presented no evidence to support this suggestion and the detectives denied it. Under these circumstances, the trial court’s determination that defendant was not in custody when he voluntarily accompanied the detectives to their car and then to the South Precinct was not clearly erroneous. See Williams v. State, 208 Ga. App. 153 (2) (430 SE2d 42) (1993); Magher v. State, 199 Ga. App. 508 (5) (405 SE2d 327) (1991). Compare D’Anna v. State, 201 Ga. App. 731 (1) (412 SE2d 857) (1991) (when defendant thought he was not free to leave and officers testified they intended to arrest defendant and would not have let him leave at the time he gave a statement, defendant was in custody for purposes of OCGA § 17-7-210 even if formal arrest came later). Accordingly, I agree that the judgment should be affirmed.
Decided September 21, 1993
Reconsideration dismissed October 13, 1993
William A. Jordan, for appellant.
Richard R. Datz, Jr., pro se.
Garry T. Moss, District Attorney, Gregory A Hicks, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Judge Andrews joins in this special concurrence.