Court Opinion

ID: 9570866
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:27:05.967383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:49.748545
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
dissenting.
The trial judge in this case dismissed the indictment against Sassoon without construing the legislative intent of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act. He found as a matter of fact that Sassoon had not, under Georgia law of waiver, waived his rights under the Act, and he was therefore entitled to have his indictment dismissed under Code Ann. § 77-505b (e) because the state violated the Act’s provisions in returning him untried to the original place of imprisonment.
The majority opinion does not challenge the trial court’s "no-waiver” decision. The opinion concludes that although Sassoon made no waiver, and although the plain provisions of Code Ann. § 77-5061) (e) were violated, and although the section states that in that event "the court shall enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice” (emphasis supplied), nonetheless on the facts presented the error did no harm to Sassoon, and therefore the statutory remedy need not be applied and the indictment need not be dismissed.
I cannot agree with this approach. I believe that when multiple jurisdictions agree with one another through a uniform Act for equivalent, reciprocal, and orderly treatment of prisoners desired by them both, it is contemplated that the Act will be enforced according to its *751plain terms to achieve simplicity and certainty. Both simplicity and certainty will be lost forever under the majority opinion. That opinion necessarily means that when a prisoner’s rights under the Act have been violated, and when he has in no fashion waived them, nonetheless the state will be accorded a full judicial hearing at which time it may introduce evidence that its violation of the Act did no harm to the prisoner’s rehabilitative opportunities in the original place of imprisonment, and therefore the prisoner’s remedies under the Act should not apply. This interpretation makes of the Act a great spawner of trivial litigation over attempted proof of an intangible (what is a significant interference with a rehabilitative process?) and I cannot agree that this accords with the true purposes of the Act.
The majority opinion concedes that it has no support except United States v. Chico, 558 F2d 1047 (2d Cir. 1977). The Chico case refused to vacate convictions for a technical violation of the Act, but the facts showed that the prisoner was out of the original jurisdiction for less than a day, and was never placed in another place of imprisonment. Sassoon was in Clayton County custody for five days. Chico was an unusual decision on unusual facts. I conclude that neither its facts nor its ruling applies here.
I respectfully dissent.