Court Opinion

ID: 9541003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:21:31.317998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:09.206000
License: Public Domain

Carley, Judge,
dissenting.
In my opinion, the majority, in its haste to express the disapproval that is warranted by the admittedly offensive and crude language employed by counsel, loses sight of one fact. The mere uncorrected use of offensive and crude language in the context of closing argument is not ipso facto a ground which always warrants the reversal of a criminal conviction. “The use of unfair or improper language by an attorney in arguing a case will not be held cause for a new trial when it is certain that no injury could possibly have resulted therefrom to the losing party.” Hoxie v. State, 114 Ga. 19 (3) (39 SE 944) (1901) (holding that closing argument containing racial slurs constituted “grossly improper conduct” and a “reprehensible and wholly inexcusable practice” but was harmless under the circumstances). It is indeed the law of this State that the trial court “must take ‘some action to prevent unfair prejudice to a party by admonition or rebuke to counsel and/or instruction to the jury with the purpose of eradicating the effect of prejudicial remarks.’ [Cit.]” Seaboard Coast Line R. v. Towns, 156 Ga. App. 24 (274 SE2d 74) (1980). It is also the law of this State that a trial court has no “independent duty to interpose and prevent prejudicial statements. . . .” Williams v. State, 251 Ga. 749, 801 (312 SE2d 40) (1983). However, I will assume for the sake of argument that since it was appellants’ own counsel who employed the grossly improper language, the trial court erred in failing to reprimand counsel on its own motion. Nonetheless, “[w]hat we must decide is whether the uncorrected argument of counsel in this case resulted in a miscarriage of justice. [Cit.] The proper standard for such a determination is the ‘ “highly probable test,” i.e., that it is highly probable that the error did not contribute to the judgment.’ [Cit.]” Sanford v. State, 153 Ga. App. 541, 542 (265 SE2d 868) (1980).
The majority opines that the offensive language in the instant case was prejudicial to appellants insofar as it “allowfed] the jury to regard [them] as racially inferior persons whose conviction for that reason would therefore be more easily reached.” (Majority opinion, page 283.) There is no doubt that the language could have that effect and I, as much as the majority, find that language to be morally as well as legally reprehensible. However, appellants were acquitted of aggravated assault and kidnapping with bodily injury by the same jury that supposedly was so prejudicially inflamed by counsel’s argu-*289merit that it considered race as the dispositive factor in reaching its verdict. Counsel did not expressly urge the jury to consider race in reaching its verdict. Insofar as counsel’s argument could be construed as implicitly fostering that result, appellants’ acquittals of crimes for which they might have been convicted had the jury been vindictively disposed to act solely out of racial motivations, leads me to conclude that it is “highly probable” that the prejudice that the majority finds in appellants’ own counsel’s closing argument is, in fact, non-existent and certainly did not contribute to the jury’s verdict. If appellants had been convicted of all the crimes for which they were being tried, I would find more merit in the majority’s conclusion that their convictions were infected by their counsel’s gross and unjustified language employed in their defense and would concur in the reversal of those convictions.
Moreover, the majority would set an untenable precedent in the instant case. It recognizes, on the one hand, that “[c]ounsel has wide latitude in closing argument, in choice of theory to be advocated, in choice of style, tactics, language.” It also recognizes that a “court will not second-guess the attorney who had undertaken the responsibility for representing his clients in their fight against the charges brought.” Yet, the majority would, in fact, be sanctioning just such second-guessing by its reversal of appellants’ convictions. The effect of the majority opinion is to authorize a client to acquiesce in his counsel’s decision as to a matter of trial tactics and then, if not totally satisfied with the result of those trial tactics, to secure a reversal by urging in the appellate court that his own counsel’s trial tactics were prejudicial to him.
In this case, appellants were acquitted of some crimes and as the majority correctly finds, the argument of appellants’ counsel does not show or intimate in any way that he had joined the State “in asking for conviction or that he had abandoned the defendants’ cause. Quite the contrary.” (Emphasis supplied.) (Majority opinion, page 282.) This being true, I do not believe that we are authorized to reverse the instant convictions by second-guessing the effectiveness of the trial tactics of counsel who has secured, if not a total acquittal for his clients, at least a partial one. Although we should in no way condone or encourage those tactics, we should not reverse unless those tactics prejudiced the clients.
As was true in Hoxie, I find counsel’s language to be “grossly improper” in the extreme. However, as was also true in Hoxie, I find no prejudice to appellants and therefore no reversible error based upon counsel’s uncorrected use of that language in argument. This is a court for the correction of errors of law, not for the correction of mere “grossly improper” language employed by counsel or for second-guessing trial counsel as to the most effective presentation of his cli*290ents’ case to the jury. I dissent not from the majority’s indictment of counsel’s language but only from the legal result that the majority finds that language to compel in the instant case. Most importantly, I fear the effect of the majority’s holding on the future application of the principles of judicial review.
Decided March 15, 1985
Rehearing denied March 29, 1985
Alvin C. McDougald, for appellants.
Willis B. Sparks III, District Attorney, Wayne G. Tillis, Thomas J. Matthews, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Banke, Presiding Judge Birdsong and Judge Sognier join in this dissent.