Court Opinion

ID: 9567497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:54:35.922613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:38.394335
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur with the majority opinion except as follows.
1. The witness had been recognized by the court as qualified to give her opinion “in the field of clinical psychology as an expert.” She had testified that in such capacity, she counseled with the child in four counseling sessions after the child had been referred to her under the district attorney’s victim assistance program. Since she was called to give her opinion that the child had been abused, the State proceeded to lay the foundation for such an opinion. Part of the basis upon which she formed that opinion was what the child said to her in the counseling sessions, as well as her observation of the child and the results of psychological tests given. She described in general the capacity of young children to distinguish fact from fancy and about their perception capacity.
Defendant stopped the proceeding to state that the witness should not be permitted to testify that the witness was credible, as that was a question reserved to the jury. There followed a debate in which the court ruled that the witness could not testify “as to the credibility of the child.” Upon request by defendant, the jury was instructed that a witness could not testify as to the victim’s credibility and that it was the jury’s province to determine credibility.
Questioning resumed, and the witness testified about her counseling sessions with the child. There was no objection to the question, “Now, in your professional opinion, was the number and lengths of the times that you counseled Ashley sufficient for you to form an expert opinion in which you had confidence in its reliability?”; nor in the answer, “Yes, it was.” Then the State asked: “And in your opinion, based on those personal sessions with Ashley, can Ashley distinguish between telling the truth and telling a lie?” The response was: “Yes, I believe she can.” The motion for mistrial followed.
In argument supporting the motion at that time, defendant’s position was that this was prohibited testimony about credibility. The State’s position was that it was not about credibility, which it conceded was a question for the jury, but about the child’s ability to recognize or discriminate or perceive between truth and lie. The State also conceded that competency to testify was initially a question to be *54resolved by the court before a possibly incompetent witness would be permitted to testify. But it insisted that the expert witness within whose area of expertise this subject fell, could acquaint the jury with her opinion that the child was capable of distinguishing between truth and lie.
The court, however, saw the evidence as invading the jury’s province on the question of the child’s credibility as a witness and granted the mistrial. This was explicitly repeated in the written order on the mistrial.
The difference between the two subjects, although the edges are not sharp, is great enough for the lack of prosecutorial misconduct to be shown as a matter of law. The State had an arguable justification for insisting on the difference and asking the objected-to question as being on the subject of competency and not on the subject of credibility. Competency may be a jury question, Goodson v. State, 162 Ga. 178 (132 SE 899) (1926) and Scott v. State, 57 Ga. App. 489 (6) (195 SE 923) (1938), and here that subject related to the expert’s analysis of the child’s stage of understanding, as a foundation for her ultimate opinion on child abuse.
Even assuming that the State was in error insofar as admissibility of the answer to this particular question is concerned, a proposition I am not prepared to accept, it cannot be said that the State deliberately created error by intentionally injecting inadmissible evidence such as would cause mistrial. Defendant himself found it necessary to rely on cases from other jurisdictions to support his position, the law on the matter not being clear. That is, there is no case in Georgia holding that when an expert who has professionally counseled with a young child who allegedly has undergone sexual abuse, that expert cannot testify that the particular child is or is not developmentally capable of distinguishing between truth and falsehood, or of comprehending the difference.
Thus, even if a mistrial was called for, what prompted it did not breach the standard by which a claim of Fifth Amendment violation is measured, as ordained in Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U. S. 667 (102 SC 2083, 72 LE2d 416) (1982).
2. This brings me to the second point. The defendant relied in the court below solely on the Fifth Amendment’s proscription against double jeopardy. The plea of former jeopardy is based expressly on this federal constitutional ground, insofar as the alleged improper question is concerned, and the brief below in support of it expands on the Fifth Amendment, Oregon v. Kennedy, and applications thereof in state cases. The court ruled on the basis of federal constitutional law, citing Oregon and “The Double Jeopardy Clause” in its conclusions of law.
Thus, the state constitutional ground was not raised below and *55should not be addressed here for the first time. See State v. Whitehead, 184 Ga. App. 162 (361 SE2d 41) (1987) [physical precedent]. See also Lee v. State, 177 Ga. App. 698 (340 SE2d 658) (1986); State v. Camp, 175 Ga. App. 591 (1) (333 SE2d 896) (1985).
3. Even if a state constitutional basis were properly before us, I could not agree with the categorical statement that the Georgia Constitution’s double jeopardy provision is less protective than the Fifth Amendment. Just because the words are not identical does not mean that they are not construed the same by the two governing supreme courts respectively, or that the state supreme court has not or cannot construe the State provision more broadly in this regard. See Linde, “E Pluribus — Constitutional Theory & State Courts,” 18 Ga. L. Rev. 165, 181, discussing text methodology (1984);1 “Developments in the Law: The Interpretation of State Constitutional Rights,” 95 Harv. L. Rev. 1324, 1356 (1982); Williams, “Methodology Problems in Enforcing State Constitutional Rights,” 3 Ga. State Univ. L. Rev. 143 (1986-87). Georgia statutory law, of course, provides more expansive double jeopardy rights. OCGA §§ 16-1-6; 16-1-7; 16-1-8. State v. Estevez, 232 Ga. 316 (1) (206 SE2d 475) (1974); Tabb v. State, 250 Ga. 317, 318 fn. 1 (297 SE2d 227) (1982).
The Supreme Court of Georgia is the final construer of our state constitution whereas the United States Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the federal constitution. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (103 SC 3469, 77 LE2d 1201) (1983); Massachusetts v. Upton, 466 U. S. 727 (104 SC 2085, 80 LE2d 721) (1984); Lee v. State, supra.

 “The right question is not whether a state’s guarantee is the same as or broader than its federal counterpart as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The right question is what the state’s guarantee means and how it applies to the case at hand. The answer may turn out the same as it would under federal law. The state’s law may prove to be more protective than federal law. The state law also may be less protective. In that case the court must go on to decide the claim under federal law, assuming it has been raised.” Id. at 179.