Court Opinion

ID: 9571608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:33:27.084037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:42.282890
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
The admissibility of evidence of independent transactions must be measured by a three-part test, not simply the “two-prong test” which did not include purpose. The similarity of the independent transaction to the incident on trial and the commonality of the perpetrator of the independent transaction to the defendant on trial are two prongs. But first the State must show that the evidence addresses “some appropriate purpose.” Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640, 642 (409 SE2d 649) (1991). By purpose is meant that the evidence will shed light on some issue in the case, such as identity of the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s intent in committing the act. Johnson v. State, 199 Ga. App. 144 (404 SE2d 455) (1991) (Beasley, J., concurring specially).
Appellant does not challenge the evidence in this regard, even though the State did not designate and the court did not specifically charge the jury what issues existed in the case which would be served *560by this evidence. Before the testimony was given, the court charged that such evidence is admitted “solely and only under the provision of law that where knowledge, common design, modus operandi, motive, intent, good or bad faith, bent of mind, plan, scheme, course of conduct, identity or other matters dependent upon a person’s state of mind are involved as material elements in the offense . . . evidence of the defendant’s conduct with reference to similar transactions about the same time is admitted solely for the jury to consider only as it might tend to illustrate the defendant’s state of mind on the subject involved. ...”
Decided November 17, 1992 —
Reconsideration denied December 2, 1992
Pruitt & Britt, Glyndon C. Pruitt, for appellant.
Thomas C. Lawler III, District Attorney, Debra K. Turner, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
In the final charge, the court essentially repeated the above but added that such evidence “is admitted solely for the jury to consider only as it might tend to illustrate the defendant’s state of mind on the subject involved, if you think it does so illustrate it, and for that purpose alone. You are not to consider it for any other purpose.”
This general and somewhat inconsistent charge does little to limit the jury’s consideration of the independent transaction evidence or to identify the contested issue in the case or the element of the crime which the evidence enlightens. Knowledge, good or bad faith, and identity were not issues, for example. On appeal, the state maintains that this evidence tends to establish appellant’s “bent of mind and course of conduct.”
But appellant does not target this aspect of the test of admissibility.. Instead, he argues that the two transactions are not sufficiently similar. With respect to that, I agree with the majority.
I concur in Division 2.