Court Opinion

ID: 9781464
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:39:00.688701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:26.727025
License: Public Domain

Andrews, Judge,
dissenting.
1. The jury instruction given by the trial court on the inference arising from Wards’s recent possession of the stolen truck was *615consistent with Georgia law and did not create a mandatory presumption or shift the burden of persuasion to Ward in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The trial court instructed the jury that, in order to prove the charged crime of theft by taking, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant took the property of another with the intention of depriving the rightful owner of the property, and then added the instruction:
The recent unexplained or inadequately explained possession of stolen property by a Defendant creates an inference or presumption of fact sufficient to convict. This is true without direct proof or other circumstantial evidence that the Defendant committed the theft. However, recent possession of stolen goods will not automatically support a conviction of theft; you as jurors honestly seeking the truth still must judge the case on the totality of the circumstances under the reasonable doubt standard that I have previously charged you. That is, recent possession is to be viewed as probative evidence of the crime and reviewed along with all of the evidence in the case to determine whether the State has proved the Defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Taken as a whole, the court’s instruction was consistent with the Georgia rule that recent unexplained possession of stolen property permits the jury to infer that the defendant committed the charged theft. The rule is that
proof of recent, unexplained possession of stolen goods by the defendant is sufficient to create an inference that the defendant is guilty of the [theft] of the goods . . . [but] proof of recent, unexplained possession is not automatically sufficient to support a conviction for [theft]. ... [I]t is rational to allow the factfinder to infer that the defendant is guilty of [theft] based on proof of his recent, unexplained possession of stolen goods; however, if the only evidence supporting the conviction is the evidence giving rise to the inference or presumption, then under Jackson v. Virginia, [443 U. S. 307 (99 SC 2781, 61 LE2d 560) (1979)] such evidence must establish the offense beyond a reasonable doubt in order to be sufficient to support the conviction.
Bankston v. State, 251 Ga. 730-731 (309 SE2d 369) (1983).
To convict an accused under this rule, the State must prove *616that (1) the goods in the accused’s possession were recently stolen and (2) someone committed the crime. If there is no satisfactory explanation of the defendant’s possession, then the proof of these facts beyond a reasonable doubt creates a presumption or permissible inference of defendant’s guilt.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Williamson v. State, 248 Ga. 47, 49 (281 SE2d 512) (1981).
The trial court’s instruction was consistent with the above rule as explained in Bankston and Williamson. Taken as a whole, the court’s instruction informed the jury that, even without other evidence that the defendant committed the theft, evidence of the defendant’s recent unexplained possession of the stolen property was sufficient to allow the jury to infer that the defendant committed the theft, but only if the jury found from a consideration of all the evidence that the defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if the first sentence of the instruction could be read in isolation as setting forth a constitutionally infirm mandatory presumption, the last two sentences immediately qualified the first sentence and clearly explained to the jury that this was a permissive presumption or inference which allowed but did not require the jury to infer the defendant’s guilt from recent unexplained possession of the stolen property. “Language that merely contradicts and does not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice to absolve the infirmity.” Francis v. Franklin, 471 U. S. 307, 322 (105 SC 1965, 85 LE2d 344) (1985). There was no mandatory presumption in violation of due process requirements because, as the instruction as a whole makes clear, the jury was permitted to reject the inference based on its independent evaluation of whether the evidence proved the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Williamson, 248 Ga. at 53-58; County Court &c. v. Allen, 442 U. S. 140, 156 (99 SC 2213, 60 LE2d 777) (1979) (ultimate test of a presumption’s constitutional validity is that it must not undermine the jury’s responsibility to find the essential elements of the charged crime beyond a reasonable doubt).
Because the instruction as a whole makes clear that the presumption was permissive and not mandatory, “a rational trier of fact would have understood that he had a choice in deciding whether to draw the inference and would not have interpreted the court’s charge as an irrebuttable direction to find that the defendant had committed the crime.” (Punctuation omitted.) Williamson, 248 Ga. at 59. Moreover,
the challenged language does not require the defendant to prove the contrary by some quantum of proof, but, rather, *617indicates to the jury that if a satisfactory explanation of the defendant’s possession is made, they are not permitted to draw the presumption. Thus the language does not have the effect of shifting the burden of persuasion to the defendant but simply advises the jury that, under certain circumstances, they are not entitled to draw the presumption.
(Punctuation omitted.) Id. at 59-60.29
2. There is also no basis for reversal on the enumeration of error not reached by the majority opinion — Ward’s claim that, during the State’s closing argument, the prosecutor improperly commented on his failure to testify at the trial, and that the trial court erred by denying his motion for a mistrial on this basis.
The record does not contain a transcript of the State’s closing argument, but only a brief excerpt immediately preceding Ward’s objection. In this excerpt, the prosecutor stated:
[Y]our verdict will speak the truth. In this case, with the facts that you heard from the witness stand, the truth is the Defendant is guilty of theft by taking [the] motor vehicle. The Defendant himself is not man enough to tell you the truth. He told the officer . . .
At this point, the record shows that Ward cut in with an objection that the prosecutor had improperly commented on his failure to testify, and moved for a mistrial. The trial court denied the motion and instructed the jury that Ward had no burden to produce evidence and that they could draw no inference harmful to Ward’s defense from his decision not to testify.
“As a rule of constitutional and Georgia statutory law, a prosecutor may not comment upon a defendant’s failure to testify at trial.” Lacey v. State, 288 Ga. 341, 344 (703 SE2d 617) (2010). To reverse a conviction for violation of this rule, one of the following two factors must be found: (1) that the prosecutor’s manifest intention was to comment upon the defendant’s failure to testify, or (2) that the prosecutor’s remark was of such a character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the defendant’s failure to testify. Ranger v. State, 249 Ga. 315, 319 (290 SE2d 63) (1982). “We must look at the context in which the prosecutor’s statement was made in order to determine if either of these two *618factors exist.” Lassiter v. State, 237 Ga. App. 495, 498 (515 SE2d 636) (1999). The State argues that the prosecutor did not intend to comment on Ward’s failure to testify at trial, but on untruthful statements Ward made to police prior to trial. The prosecutor’s abbreviated comment (interrupted by Ward’s objection) that, “He told the officer ...” would seem to support this contention. Nevertheless, we are unable to examine the context in which the alleged improper statement was made because there is no transcript of the State’s closing argument in the record.
Where the transcript or record does not fully disclose what transpired at trial, the burden is on the complaining party to have the record completed in the trial court. . . . When this is not done, there is nothing for the appellate court to review. Therefore, due to the omission of closing arguments from the transcript, we cannot review this enumeration of error.
(Punctuation omitted.) Carswell v. State, 251 Ga. App. 733, 736 (555 SE2d 124) (2001) (unable to review claim that the prosecutor commented on the defendant’s failure to testify because only the objection but not the closing argument was included in the record).
Moreover, the record shows that, in response to Ward’s motion for a mistrial, the trial court gave a prompt curative instruction that informed the jury that Ward had no burden to produce evidence and that they could draw no harmful inference from his failure to testify.
An improper comment on the defendant’s silence does not necessarily require a reversal. The grant or denial of a mistrial is within the trial court’s sound discretion, and we will not interfere with the trial court’s exercise of that discretion unless it is clear that a mistrial was essential to preserve the right to a fair trial.
Knolton v. State, 268 Ga. App. 78, 79 (601 SE2d 467) (2004); Cockrell v. State, 281 Ga. 536, 541 (640 SE2d 262) (2007). In light of the curative instruction, and in the absence of any transcript of closing argument, there is no basis on this record to conclude that a mistrial was essential to preserve Ward’s right to a fair trial, or that the trial court abused its discretion in denying a mistrial.
3. Because I agree with the majority opinion that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury verdict finding Ward guilty of theft by taking, the judgment of conviction should be affirmed. I respectfully dissent.
I am authorized to state that Judge Dillard joins in this dissent.
*619Decided November 16, 2011.
Kevin Kwashnak, for appellant.
Plez H. Hardin, District Attorney, Lewis R. Lamb, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

 The fact that the court’s instruction did not violate due process requirements is not an endorsement of the language used; rather, the better practice is to use the instruction on recent possession of stolen property set forth in the Suggested Pattern Jury Instructions published by the Council of Superior Court Judges of Georgia.