Court Opinion

ID: 9564031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:53:17.634232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:11.483968
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
On motion for rehearing, the state argues that our decision in the present case is in conflict both with our holding in Fisher v. State, 143 Ga. App. 493 (238 SE2d 584) (1977), and with certain language appearing in Andrews v. State, 175 Ga. App. 22, 24 (332 SE2d 299) (1985) , and Haisman v. State, 242 Ga. 896, 898 (252 SE2d 397) (1979).
The defendant in Fisher v. State, supra, was not arrested pursu*753ant to a uniform traffic citation but pursuant to a warrant issued by a justice of the peace. There is, of course, no statute analogous to OCGA § 40-13-3 permitting an arrest warrant to be used as a substitute for a formal accusation. The cases of Andrews v. State, supra, and Haisman v. State, supra, are inapposite in that the defendants therein never filed statutory demands for trial; rather, they were asserting violations of their constitutional right to a speedy trial.
While it is true that each of these cases contains language supportive of the general proposition that the right to file a statutory demand for trial does not attach until an indictment has been returned or an accusation filed, none of them purports to address the specific issue presented by the present case, i.e., whether an accusation may be deemed to have been “found” within the meaning of OCGA § 17-7-170, so as to permit the filing of a valid demand for trial, where an arrest has been effected pursuant to a uniform traffic citation, and the clerk of the trial court has issued the defendant a notice to appear in that court for arraignment on the charges specified therein. As previously indicated, this court has twice held that where a defendant has been bound over to state court by a recorder’s court to be tried on the charges set forth in a uniform traffic citation, he need not await the filing of the citation in state court to file a statutory demand for trial. See Majia v. State, 174 Ga. App. 432 (330 SE2d 171) (1985); Collins v. State, 154 Ga. App. 651 (269 SE2d 509) (1980). It necessarily follows that in such cases the accusation is considered “found” within the meaning of the code section before it is actually filed with the clerk of the trial court.
In response to the state’s additional assertion on motion for rehearing that justice will not be served “if a defendant can force a prosecutor to trial, particularly in a complicated and perhaps serious case, before that prosecutor has had a reasonable opportunity to prepare the case,” we observe that prosecutions based on uniform traffic citations will not normally be so serious or complex as to require lengthy pretrial investigation or preparation. That is undoubtedly one of the reasons the Legislature chose to dispense with the necessity of a formal accusation in such cases.
Finally, our decision in the present case should not be interpreted as limiting the discretion of the solicitor to proceed on the basis of a formal accusation rather than on the basis of the uniform traffic citation where one has been issued. We merely hold that the solicitor’s discretion in this regard will not control the defendant’s right to file a statutory demand for trial with respect to charges on which he has been arrested, issued a uniform traffic citation, and notice to appear in the trial court for arraignment.
*754Decided June 17, 1986
Rehearing denied July 14, 1986
Ralph T. Bowden, Jr., Solicitor, Elliott A. Shoenthal, Henry M. Newkirk, Assistant Solicitors, for appellant.
Charles A. Mullinax, for appellee.
Norman Miller, Joseph L. Chambers, Charles H. Frier, amici curiae.