Court Opinion

ID: 9588815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:39:02.748679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:17:47.649609
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion and leave the position I took in State v. Houston, 234 Ga. 721 (218 SE2d 13) (1975). After further study, I am now convinced that a commitment hearing under Code Ann. Chs. 27-2 and 27-4 is an adversary hearing and that Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U. S. 1 (1970), requires counsel for the accused where there is a pre-trial adversary confrontation. See State v. Middlebrooks, 236 Ga. 52. I agree that while the *63appellant has been denied a federal constitutional right of counsel, no reversal is required under the doctrine of harmless constitutional error where the state carries the burden of proof under Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427 (1972); Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969); Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1907). The record and transcript show the error to be harmless.
A study of all the commitment hearing cases decided today demonstrates to me that the time has come for the General Assembly to revise the antiquated, fragmented and hodge-podge provisions of Code Ann. Chs. 27-2 and 27-4. If this court were vested with the rule-making authority that is possessed by the highest courts of practically all our states, it could adopt modern pre-trial criminal procedures and discovery as the Florida Supreme Court did after Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U. S. 103 (95 SC 854, 43 LE2d 54) (1975). Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure, as amended. However, this court’s impotence to act is enforced by a constitutional straitjacket. See Leverett, Georgia and the Rule-Making Power, 23 Ga. B. J. 303 (1961). My hope is that the General Assembly will carry out its responsibility under Code Ann. § 2-4401 and enact new pre-trial criminal rules at the 1976 session taking into consideration the Florida Rules, supra, the ABA Standards Relating to The Administration of Criminal Justice (Discovery and Procedure Before Trial) 241-265 (1974), the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Amendments Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-64) (see Hungate, Changes in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 61 A. B. A. J. 1203 (1975)), and the American Law Institute Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure (1975) (see Vorenberg, A. L. I. Approves Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, 61 A. B. A. J. 1212 (1975)).