Court Opinion

ID: 9609580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:28:40.827378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:51.188817
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the affirmance of the conviction because the evidence was overwhelming, so that the type of errors committed was harmless. Gilbert v. State, 208 Ga. App. 258, 263 (3) (430 SE2d 391) (1993).
I agree that the 1980 transaction should not have been admitted; it was not sufficiently similar and it was too remote to serve any of the legitimate purposes for which it might have been offered. Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261 (71 SE2d 615) (1952). It did not meet all three of the affirmative showings which the State is required to show. Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640, 641 (2) (b) (409 SE2d 649) (1991).
However, I do not agree that the court’s instruction on this evidence was not erroneous. It was error to give it at all, because it related to evidence which should have been excluded. Even if it had applied to admissible evidence, it was not properly limited. The court gave a whole string of purposes for which such evidence may be admitted, but did not confine these to any particular issue or issues which were present in this case. For example, the court listed “identity”; that was not an issue.
Williams established that in order for evidence of an independent offense or act to be admissible, the State must affirmatively show that it is offered “for some appropriate purpose.” It requires the trial court to make a determination that this showing has been satisfactorily made.
The purpose for the evidence must be the resolution of some issue in the case, articulated by the State. Otherwise it would be immaterial. The curb imposed at the threshold (a showing by the State and a determination by the court) does no good if the jury is not properly apprised of the limitation. Giving the jury a whole list of the purposes for which such evidence is permitted, such as those identified in Williams, footnote 2, can have the very effect which is sought to be avoided. That is, the jury would have a hard time to distinguish between using the evidence for the whole wide-ranging litany of purposes described and using it generally. There is a substantial danger that it will simply be led to consider the defendant’s general character. See Evans v. State, 209 Ga. App. 606, 607 (434 SE2d 148) (1993) (Beasley, J., dissenting).
*782Decided March 7, 1994
Reconsideration denied April 1, 1994.
James J. Dalton II, Fleming & Risher, Richard D. Hobbs, for appellant.
Robert E. Keller, District Attorney, Todd E. Naugle, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
The problem is exacerbated in this case by the inconsistency of the court’s instruction. First it charged that the evidence was admitted for a wide range of purposes. Then it concluded that it was admitted solely to illustrate defendant’s “state of mind on the subject involved,” i.e., criminal possession of diazepam. This confusion would make more likely a forbidden consideration by the jury of the defendant’s character. If the evidence of other transactions is to be admitted to prove the crime for which a defendant is on trial, it must be clearly and explicitly limited to an issue or issues in the particular case; otherwise we inch towards trial by dossier.