Court Opinion

ID: 9765869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:22:52.141557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:16.493156
License: Public Domain

MELTON, Justice,
concurring specially.
I cannot concur in the reasoning employed in Division 3 of the majority opinion. Therefore, although I concur in the remaining Divisions of the majority, I must write separately to address the State’s improper impeachment of Johnny Holman with impermissible opinion testimony.
In analyzing Holman’s testimony, we must be guided by the general principle that a witness should not be allowed to give his opinion on the ultimate issue of fact to be determined by the jury. In this case, that ultimate issue is the identity of the perpetrators. With this in mind, the record shows that Holman, a relative of Hightower *595and Johnson, was called by the State. After initially questioning Holman about his knowledge of where the defendants may have been on the night of the crime, the State asked two questions intended to elicit prior statements Holman made about the crimes. Holman was first asked: “Was there an occasion that you came over to your cousin, Daphne Hightower’s house and you represented to her that Ricardel was in trouble. Ricardel was in trouble and done killed someone?” Later, Holman was asked whether “there was an occasion when you talked to [the investigating law enforcement officer] about her investigation into Ricardel Hightower and Roderick Johnson and you represented to her that she was on the right track?” Holman responded negatively to both questions, and the defendants did not object.
Contrary to the characterization of the trial court and the State, neither of the questions posed to Holman asked for or elicited his opinion about the crimes. Instead, he was asked about statements indicating that he knew the identity of the assailants, not merely that he had an opinion of who they were based on speculation, hunch, or conjecture. Accordingly, the questions did not elicit opinion testimony, and the defendants, therefore, rightly chose not to object to the line of questioning on this particular basis.
Then, after Holman finished testifying, the State called the investigating officer to whom Holman had spoken and, over objection, the trial court allowed the State to elicit her testimony that Holman “stated that he strongly believes that Mr. Hightower and Mr. Zackery committed the robbery and the burglary.” (Emphasis supplied.) At this point, the State was allowed to introduce Holman’s unmitigated opinion testimony for the first time.10 In addition, the opinion testimony was introduced for an improper reason — namely to impeach prior testimony which had been inaccurately classified as opinion testimony. In other words, it was introduced to impeach prior opinion testimony which did not exist. This was clearly error, and the trial court’s instruction to the jury to treat the opinion testimony as impeachment evidence merely perpetuated the problem.
Furthermore, the problem remains even though prosecutors generally must be given wide leeway in their scope of impeachment to prevent defendants from “presenting tailored defenses insulated from effective challenge.” Overcash v. State, 239 Ga. 499, 500 (1) (238 SE2d 50) (1977). Here, the prosecution could have specifically *596elicited information to show that the statements, assuming arguendo that they were admissible, had been made. Instead, the State went far beyond the scope of impeachment and sought to elicit improper opinion testimony on the ultimate issue of fact. In other words, the State tried to submit improper testimony by forcing it under the aegis of impeachment. In State v. Rocco, 259 Ga. 463 (384 SE2d 183) (1989), we clearly took issue with this type of strategy. There, we stated: “A party may not question a witness concerning inadmissible matter and then elicit testimony thereafter to be impeached with evidence inadmissible in the case-in-chief.” Id. at 467 (1). That is essentially what happened in this case.
These already existing errors were further exacerbated when the State later recalled Holman to the stand, and after Holman talked about the gambling on the night in question, the State was allowed to ask the following questions over objection: (1) “Was there an occasion in this conversation [with the investigating officer] when you represented that you believed that Richard Zackery and Ricardel Hightower committed this crime because Ricardel was losing money [while gambling]?” and (2) “[W]as there an occasion that you represented to [the police investigator] that you believe that these individuals did this crime based upon the fact that Ricardel High-tower was losing Richard Zackery’s money?” In response to the second question, Holman answered: “[The investigator] said: ‘Just give me your feeling. What do you feel? Do you feel they had anything to do with it by what I done told you?’ I told her yes; that’s exactly what I told her.” After this answer to the second question, the defendants moved for a mistrial. The trial court denied the mistrial, and instead charged the jury that Holman’s answers were merely opinions.11
Unlike the prior statements of opinion, this testimony was admitted without even the improper excuse that it was impeachment evidence. Although the trial court’s instruction appears to recognize that Holman’s opinion was improper evidence, the trial court admitted it anyway and never instructed the jurors to disregard it. Again, this is clearly error and runs afoul of the rule that “[a] witness generally is not permitted to express his or her opinion regarding an ultimate issue in the case because to do so would invade the fact-finding province of the jury. . . .” Medlock v. State, 263 Ga. 246, 248 (3) (430 SE2d 754) (1993).
*597Decided July 14, 2010.
Jimmonique R. S. Rodgers, for appellant (case no. S10A0383).
Mark T. Phillips, for appellant (case no. S10A0589).
Gregory W. Edwards, District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Reggie A. Lampkin, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
The next question, of course, is whether the trial court’s errors caused harm. The record shows that, on other prior occasions, the State was allowed to obtain similar opinions and evidence from other witnesses without objection. Accordingly, Holman’s testimony was largely duplicative of other admitted testimony, rendering harmless the trial court’s error regarding the opinion testimony discussed above. Hayes v. State, 265 Ga. 1, 3 (3) (453 SE2d 11) (1995); Roper v. State, 263 Ga. 201, 202-203 (2) & n. 2 (429 SE2d 668) (1993).
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Carley and Justice Nahmias join in this special concurrence.

 Therefore, true opinion testimony, under the guise of impeachment evidence, was admitted for the first time over objection. This fact, in turn, renders the defendants’ failure to object to the initial two questions of the State irrelevant to the latter introduction of Holman’s opinions.

 The trial court charged the jury:
I want to instruct you that the opinion Mr. Holman gave about who may be responsible for the murder in the case is a decision that y’all have to make, not him. He’s just stated what he thinks based on facts he knew. You ultimately decide who is guilty and who is not guilty in the case, if anybody is guilty.