Court Opinion

ID: 9613182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:14:57.333787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:26.318149
License: Public Domain

Benham, Judge,
dissenting.
In order to focus clearly on the issue before the court, I deem it necessary to review the procedural journey of this case prior to the surfacing of the instant appeal.
Appellant was first convicted in the Probate Court of Fayette County in 1983 for DUI and improper parking. Within the time permitted by law appellant filed a writ of certiorari in the Superior Court of Fayette County. The respondent failed to answer within the requi*646site time period. Nevertheless, relying on City of Atlanta v. Schaffer, 245 Ga. 164 (264 SE2d 6) (1980), respondent filed a motion to dismiss in superior court, contending appellant failed to file a motion to compel an answer. The motion was granted and an appeal was taken to this court. Copeland v. White, 172 Ga. App. 198 (322 SE2d 523) (1984). We affirmed the conviction, and on November 2, 1984, appellant filed in Fayette Superior Court a notice of appeal from the remittitur of October 18, 1984, relying on the 1982 amendment to OCGA § 9-11-41 (b), which limited the scope of City of Atlanta v. Schaffer, supra, by stating that a dismissal for failure to prosecute is not an adjudication on the merits. Respondent countered by moving to dismiss on the basis that appellant had elected the wrong remedy, i.e., he had filed a notice of appeal when in fact he should have filed a writ of certiorari under OCGA § 5-4-3. The trial court granted the motion for dismissal, and it is from the dismissal that this appeal is brought.
The sole enumeration of error is the granting of the dismissal; however, appellant raises a violation of due process argument, and it is the due process issue that persuades me to call for reversal.
1. I am in complete agreement with the majority’s view that appeals in matters of this nature should be by direct appeal rather than discretionary, and I would concur in the overruling of the intimation in King v. State, 176 Ga. App. 137 (335 SE2d 439) (1985), that the discretionary route is necessary in appeals from probate court. See OCGA § 5-6-35 (a) (1). Regrettably, my agreement ends at that point.
2. In City of Atlanta v. Schaffer, supra, the Georgia Supreme Court sanctioned dismissal where procedural niceties in criminal cases are not adhered to; however, the United States Supreme Court, in Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U. S__(105 SC 830, 83 LE2d 821) (1985) (53 USLW 4101), cast aside the procedural hurdles in favor of deciding criminal cases on the merits. Hence, I interpret Evitts v. Lucey as implicitly overruling City of Atlanta v. Schaffer.
Like Kentucky, from which Evitts emanates, Georgia has a statute permitting appeals as a matter of right in criminal cases. OCGA § 5-6-33. In this regard, I find particularly persuasive the following language in Evitts, supra at 4105: “A system of appeal as of right is established precisely to assure that only those who are validly convicted have their freedom drastically curtailed ... In short, when a State opts tó act in a field where its action has significant discretionary elements, it must nonetheless act in accord with the dictates of the Constitution — and, in particular, in accord with the Due Process Clause.”
Admittedly, Evitts deals mainly with a right to counsel matter, an issue not present here, but it also gives an in-depth analysis of due process and focuses on the right of a criminal defendant to a first appeal. Calling attention to Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (76 SC 585, *647100 LE 891) (1956), the Evitts court, at 4106, states: “In establishing a system of appeal as of right, the State [has] implicitly determined that it [is] unwilling to curtail drastically a defendant’s liberty unless a second judicial decision-maker, the appellate court, [is] convinced that the conviction was in accord with law.” Such a statement negates the application of procedural niceties to dispose of a criminal appeal without reaching the merits.
Decided March 19, 1986
Rehearing denied April 4, 1986.
Lee Sexton, for appellant.
Johnnie L. Caldwell, Jr., District Attorney, R. Mark Mahler, Assistant District Attorney, for appellees.
To allow the State to ignore procedural requirements as it did initially in failing to answer the writ of certiorari, and then to allow the State to use its disobedience to gain a procedural advantage and thereby defeat the appeal, is a direct affront to due process. Conceding that we are bound to follow the ruling of our Supreme Court in City of Atlanta v. Schaffer, supra; nevertheless, we are not bound to follow a decision which we believe to have been implicitly overruled by Evitts v. Lucey, supra.
Justice Brennan, speaking for the majority in Evitts, equates the application of procedural niceties in criminal cases to arbitrariness because such rules are unrelated to the issue involved. While I bristle at the thought of abandoning time-honored procedural rules, I take some comfort in the court’s language at 4105: “To the extent that a State believes its procedural rules are in jeopardy, numerous courses remain open. For example, a State may certainly enforce a vital procedural rule by imposing sanctions against the attorney, rather than against the client. Such a course may well be more effective than the alternative of refusing to decide the merits of an appeal and will reduce the possibility that a defendant who was powerless to obey the rules will serve a term of years in jail on an unlawful conviction.”
Being convinced that substance should be superior to form, I would reverse.