Court Opinion

ID: 9582112
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:22:43.933328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:27.902379
License: Public Domain

*63Carley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment of the majority affirming appellant’s conviction and I fully endorse the majority’s conclusion that the trial court’s charge here was not violative of the mandate of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (99 SC 2450, 61 LE2d 39) (1979). I also agree with the majority that the trial court’s charge in this case "when read as a whole,” neither created a mandatory presumption nor impermissibly shifted the burden of proof.
I think it instructive to note the entire segment of the court’s instruction wherein appeared the allegedly offending language: " You will recall that I defined the crime as a violation of the statute in which there is a union or joint operation of act and intention. In that connection, I charge you that a specific intent to commit the crime charged in this indictment is an essential element that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Intent is always a question for the Jury and is ordinarily ascertained by acts and conduct. Intent may be shown in many ways provided the Jury finds that it existed from the evidence produced before them. Intent may be inferred from the proven circumstances or by acts and conduct or it may be presumed when it is the natural and necessary consequences of the act.” (Emphasis supplied.) The jury in the Sandstrom case "was told that rthe law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts.’ ” Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510, 517 (99 SC 2450, 61 LE2d 39, 46), supra. In Whisenhunt v. State, 152 Ga. App. 829 (1979), the trial court charged that " '[a] person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his act.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) Whisenhunt, supra. Because in Whisenhunt the "presumption” language of the charge was very similar to that declared defective in Sandstrom, this court — relying upon Skrine v. State, 244 Ga. 520 (260 SE2d 900) (1979) — was able to find the challenged instruction to be Sandstrom-pure only because the trial court has also instructed the jury that "this presumption may be rebutted.” The last quoted phrase is absent from the charge in the instant case. However, since the language of the charge which is here under attack is distinctively different in substance and import from that in Whisenhunt and Skrine — and certainly Sandstrom — there was no necessity for the trial court to also charge as to the rebuttable nature of any presumption.