Court Opinion

ID: 9573722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:57:59.349276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:10.113577
License: Public Domain

Banke, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
1. While the act of selling a drug necessarily implies control or dominion over it, the converse is not true — i.e., possession of a drug does not necessarily imply an intention to sell or distribute it. Rather, such possession may be fully consistent with an intention merely to consume the drug. As indicated by the majority, there was no showing of any factual similarity whatever between the conduct giving rise to the appellant’s prior cocaine possession conviction and the conduct for which he was on trial. Consequently, I fully agree that the trial court erred in admitting the prior conviction. However, I cannot agree that the error was harmless.
The state’s case was based entirely on the testimony of an undercover Chatham County police detective to the effect that the appellant had sold him cocaine. This detective testified that as he was driving through an area of Savannah seeking to purchase drugs, a man whom he identified as Earl Cephus Pinckney motioned for him to pull over and asked him what he was looking for. The detective testified that he replied, “A twenty,” and that Pinckney then walked across the street and spoke with another person, whom the detective identified at trial as the appellant. According to the detective, Pinckney ultimately took something from this person’s hand, returned to his (the detective’s) vehicle, reached in, and handed him a piece of crack cocaine. The detective testified that he paid Pinckney twenty dollars for this cocaine, using a bill whose serial numbers he had previously recorded, and that before driving away he observed Pinckney hand this money to the appellant. Shortly thereafter, other law enforcement officers converged on the area and arrested both the appellant and Pinckney, based on descriptions radioed to them by the detective.
At the time of his arrest, the appellant was not in possession of any cocaine but was in possession of $181 in cash, including, according to the arresting officer, the 20 dollar bill which the undercover detective had given to Pinckney to pay for the cocaine. However, this twenty dollar bill was not introduced into evidence at trial, even though the other money seized from the appellant was introduced. Asked how he knew the 20 dollar bill in question was the same one the undercover detective had given to Pinckney, the arresting officer replied, “[W]e record the serial numbers off of that prior to th[e] purchase. ...” However, it is apparent from the undercover detective’s testimony that it was he, rather than the arresting officer, who had actually recorded the serial numbers from the bill in question; *451and there was no testimony that anyone had actually compared the numbers copied from the bill given to Pinckney with the numbers on the bill seized from the appellant.
As noted by the majority, the appellant’s only “defense” to the charge was the possibility of mistaken identification. Inasmuch as this defense could have been conclusively negated by proof that the 20 dollar bill given to Pinckney was the same one found in the appellant’s possession, the state’s failure to produce this bill in court, along with the serial numbers assertedly recorded from it by the undercover detective, may well have struck the jury as a troublesome and inexplicable weakness in its case. It is quite understandable under these circumstances that the state would have desired to introduce the appellant’s prior cocaine possession conviction in an effort to prove to the jury that he was the type of person who might be expected to sell such drugs. However, the use of a defendant’s prior criminal record merely to establish that he is a person of criminal character is prohibited by OCGA § 24-9-20 (b), “unless and until the defendant shall have first put his character in issue.” See Williams v. State, 251 Ga. 749, 755 (312 SE2d 40) (1983).
An error is harmless only if it is “highly probable” that it did not contribute to the verdict. State v. Johnson, 238 Ga. 59, 60 (230 SE2d 869) (1976). Apparently, the state did no.t consider the appellant’s prior conviction to be harmless evidence, or it would not have insisted on introducing it. Under the circumstances, I would reverse the judgment below and remand the case for a new trial.
2. The majority states that “ Whitley [v. State, 193 Ga. App. 192 (1) (387 SE2d 348) (1989),] does not stand for the proposition that evidence of a defendant’s possession of drugs on another occasion is indiscriminately admissible in his trial for the sale of drugs.” I must respectfully disagree. The appellant in Whitley had been convicted of selling marijuana. He contended on appeal that there had been an insufficient showing of similarity to warrant the introduction of evidence that a quantity of marijuana had been seized from his premises some two and a half months subsequent to the sale for which he was on trial. In rejecting that contention, this court ruled as follows: “With regard to the showing of similarity, the ‘(e)vidence of subsequent (possession of marijuana) would be admissible in a trial for sale of marijuana. (Cit.) This is particularly true when (, as in the instant case,) identity is in issue. (Cit.)’ Brown v. State, 183 Ga. App. 476, 477 (1) (359 SE2d 233) (1987).1 Thus, the trial court did not err in *452admitting the evidence of the subsequent seizure of marijuana.” Whitley, supra, 193 Ga. App. at 193.
Decided March 14, 1991
Rehearing denied March 29, 1991
Calhoun & Associates, Gregory N. Crawford, for appellant.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., District Attorney, John T. Garcia, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
There is nothing in this language which remotely suggests that the location where the subsequent marijuana seizure occurred had any bearing on the court’s decision. Rather, the court’s holding in that case was quite clearly based on the assumption that evidence of unlawful drug possession on another occasion was per se admissible in a prosecution for selling drugs. Indeed, this very court subsequently interpreted the decision to that effect in Cross v. State, 196 Ga. App. 714, 715 (397 SE2d 125) (1990), citing it for the proposition that “[pjroof of subsequent possession of some unused quantity of contraband is a sufficiently similar offense to be admissible in a trial for the sale of contraband.” (Emphasis from original.) However, regardless of whether this court did or did not predicate its holding in Whitley on the assumption that there is a per se rule of admissibility in such cases, we appear to be unanimous in the present case in holding that no such per se rule of admissibility in fact exists.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Sognier joins in this dissent.

 What this court actually said in Brown was not that evidence of subsequent possession would be admissible in a trial for sale of marijuana but that “[ejvidence of subsequent sales of drugs would be admissible in a trial for sale of marijuana.” (Emphasis supplied.) Id., 183 Ga. App. at 477.