Court Opinion

ID: 9574579
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:06:07.009979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:12.043257
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Justice,
concurring specially.
I write separately with respect to Divisions 1, 2 and 3 because I question whether the majority has applied the appropriate standard of appellate review. On review, we do not, as implied by the majority, decide the factual components leading to the determination whether a defendant has voluntarily consented to a search or voluntarily made a statement. Granted, there are legal components of these decisions to which we owe the trial judge no deference and which we are free, on review, to decide.1 And to be sure, there is often confusion about what is law and what is fact. Our decisions nonetheless should strive to *66eliminate that confusion.
Decided February 18, 1991 —
Reconsideration denied March 27, 1991.
Michael C. Eubanks, District Attorney, Richard E. Thomas, Assistant District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, for appellant.
Sam B. Sibley, Jr., B. H. Barton, Benjamin A. Jackson, for appellees.
The trial judge did not base his suppression of the gun and ammunition on a factual determination that neither McBride nor his mother consented to the search. Rather, he suppressed this evidence because the officer did not explain the reasons for, and the consequences of the search, and did not advise McBride and his mother, in advance, of their Fourth Amendment rights, such as the right to require a search warrant. Thus, the trial judge reached a conclusion of law that the consent was involuntary. We owe no deference to this legal conclusion, and I would hold expressly that there was no legal barrier to the admission of this evidence. Accordingly, while I disagree with the majority that we are authorized to find any facts regarding whether consent was voluntary,2 I concur with the result, reversing the trial court’s exclusion of the evidence.
Likewise, the trial court’s decision to suppress the statements was not based on a factual determination that the statements were made involuntarily. Credibility was not an issue because the evidence was undisputed and the defendants offered no testimony. Rather, the trial court reached a conclusion of law that the statements were barred because they were the product of an illegal arrest and because of juvenile code violations. These, too, were erroneous conclusions, and the statements should have been admitted.

 For an interesting review of this subject matter as it pertains to consents to search, see the case of United States v. Garcia, 890 F2d 355 (11th Cir. 1989).

 Unless clearly erroneous, the trial court’s ruling on disputed facts and credibility at a suppression hearing must be accepted on appeal. Dean v. State, 250 Ga. 77, 80 (2a) (295 SE2d 306) (1982).