Court Opinion

ID: 9588119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:30:23.799084+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:51.193239
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Regarding Division 1, citing Coleman v. State, 237 Ga. 84 (226 SE2d 911) (1976), see my dissent in that case. I therefore concur only in the judgment as to Division 1.
Regarding Divisions 9 and 19, I am revolted by the macabre spectacle of the state’s introduction upon resentencing of Teresa Carol Allen’s pathetic ear, now so withered and misshaped as to mislead the jury as to the condition of the body when it was found. While there might have been justification for such conduct at the guilt-innocence trial, Green v. State, 242 Ga. 261 (8b) (249 SE2d 1) (1978), there was none here other than to inflame the jury. I therefore am unable to agree to the imposition of the death penalty because I cannot find that it was not imposed under the influence of passion or other arbitrary factor. Code § 27-2537 (c)(1). Further, I believe the deceased’s ear is entitled to humane disposition rather than being treated as a gruesome souvenir of her tragic death. I therefore dissent to Divisions 9 and 19.
Regarding Division 16, after deliberating a little over 3 hours, the jurprs returned to the courtroom to ask: “Can a sentence be given, ‘Life in prison without parole?’ ” The judge informed the jury that he was unable to answer the question. After asking if the jury could have a witness’ answer to a question read if the jury decided it was needed, the jury retired. Twenty-five minutes later, the foreperson returned to the court to say that a juror, Dorothy Todd, had fainted in the corridor when leaving the courtroom earlier and was, in the foreperson’s opinion, physically and emotionally unable to continue, *610and the juror had asked to be excused. The court excused juror Todd based upon the foreperson’s statement and replaced her with an alternate juror. On appeal the defendant alleges that after the court declined to answer the question about “life without parole,” the juror, upon leaving the courtroom, fell to the floor, shaking and waving her arms and saying in a voice loud enough to be heard in the courtroom: “I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t do it.” The state does not refute this assertion.
It appears highly probable that the reason the juror was unable to continue (and the reason she requested to be relieved) may well have been that she couldn’t impose the death penalty. In my view, the trial court should have questioned the juror personally as to the reason for her being unable to continue. The juror was qualified during voir dire under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (88 SC 1770, 20 LE2d 776) (1968), and from all that appears she was stricken by the court during deliberation because she was unable to vote for capital punishment under the facts of this case. See Lewis v. State, 246 Ga. 101 (268 SE2d 915) (1980). This is a violation of Witherspoon just the same as if she had been stricken during voir dire. See also Miller v. State, 237 Ga. 557, 559 (229 SE2d 376) (1976). I therefore dissent to Division 16.
For the foregoing reasons I dissent to the imposition of the penalty of death in this case.