Court Opinion

ID: 9588420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:34:19.36693+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:00.859018
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree that suppression based on Fourth Amendment standards was erroneous, but I reach this conclusion by a different route than that expressed by the majority.
1. DeKalb County Deputy Sheriff Toles would have been acting de jure, if he had been sworn as a special deputy in Clayton County, OCGA § 45-3-7, and fulfilled the other legal requirements such as filing the oath, OCGA § 45-3-8, and executing a bond, OCGA § 15-16-23. But there was no testimonial or documentary evidence to show that he was so deputized, which would have settled the matter.
Yet it was not the burden of the state to prove by extrinsic evi*326dence that he was lawfully authorized to arrest in Clayton County. “The appointment and qualification of (persons) as deputy sheriffs may be shown by proof that they act as such. ‘It is not in general necessary to prove the written appointments of public officers. Proof that a person acts as a public officer is, prima facie, sufficient to show that he is such officer.’ Allen v. State, 21 Ga. 217.” Earl v. State, 124 Ga. 28, 29 (1) (52 SE 78) (1905). It is a “well settled principle that public officials shall be presumed to have performed their duties and acted in good faith unless clearly proven otherwise. [Cits.]” Richmond County Hosp. Auth. v. Richmond County, 255 Ga. 183, 192 (2) (c) (336 SE2d 562) (1985).
Simply because this came up in a motion to suppress hearing, where the burden is on the state to prove the validity of the warrant-less search and seizure, does not cast the burden to prove the officer’s authority on the state. See OCGA § 17-5-30 (b). In such a hearing, the state’s burden is to prove probable cause and exigent circumstances. See Phillips v. State, 167 Ga. App. 260 (1.a) (305 SE2d 918) (1983). It was defendant’s obligation to prove lack of authority and so overcome the evidentiary presumption which the law supplied. This was the case in Allen v. State, supra. There defendant’s motion for a directed verdict at trial, on the ground that the arresting officer’s authority was not proved, was rejected.
2. Even if defendant had proved that Toles was acting without legal authority, the arrest would have been valid.
It is without dispute that Toles was acting as a deputy sheriff at least de facto when he made the arrest. That being the case, the arrest was legal insofar as its effect on defendant is concerned. OCGA § 45-3-10 provides that “The official acts of an officer shall be valid regardless of his omission to take and file the oath, except in cases where so specially declared.”
The doctrine of de facto official authority is one of long standing in Georgia. Its roots are traced in Hinton v. Lindsay, 20 Ga. 746, 748 (1856), in which it was said: “We consider the doctrine well settled, upon great principles of public policy, that the acts of an officer de facto, whether judicial or ministerial, are valid, so far as the rights of the public or third persons having an interest in such acts are concerned; and that neither the title of such an officer nor the validity of his acts, as such, can be indirectly called in question in a proceeding to which he is not a party.” Even the acts of a person holding a commission who is ineligible to hold office are deemed “valid as the acts of an officer de facto.” OCGA § 45-2-1.
The fact that the Hinton case involved a justice of the peace and not a deputy sheriff gives no pause, for the concept was applied to the acts of a deputy sheriff in Stephens v. State, 106 Ga. 116, 118 (2) (32 SE 13) (1898) and in Powell v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 45 Ga. App. 88 *327(3) (163 SE 239) (1931). Powell also answers the seeming anomaly created by the law which makes the entering upon the deputy’s duties without first taking and filing the oath a misdemeanor. OCGA § 45-3-9. Recognizing this problem, the case simply says that the de facto doctrine applies “notwithstanding the deputy, in acting without having been appointed in writing, violates a penal statute.” Stephens explains the real harmony between the two principles by stating that it is “as between the State and the defendant” that the act is considered lawful. That of course would not prevent the state from prosecuting the officer for the misdemeanor.1

 As to the wisdom of specially deputizing multi-government squads, see Op. Atty. Gen. 69-473.