Court Opinion

ID: 9589548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:46:04.487081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:02.875384
License: Public Domain

Jordan, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. I dissent from Division 2 of the opinion and would reverse for the reason that this case falls squarely within Cox v. State, 165 Ga. 145 (139 SE 861), where the Supreme Court held in an almost identical factual situation that evidence of similar acts with an elder sister was not an exception to the general rule and was erroneously admitted. The Cox case has been cited with approval many times, and relied upon in the leading case of Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261 (71 SE2d 615). The Cox case was merely distinguished upon its facts in Barkley v. State, 190 Ga. 641, 642 (10 SE2d 32), cited in the majority opinion, where the court held admissible evidence that the defendant, on trial for rape, had committed in concert with another man, the offense of rape upon other females in the same vicinity within a period of about a month, surprising and overcoming their victims by the same general method. The evidence in Barkley was not only relevant in point of time but tended to show a general scheme or modus operandi.
In the case under consideration the time element varies from 7 to 14 years prior to the date of trial. This court recently held in Davis v. State, 115 Ga. App. 338 (154 SE2d 462), that evi*878dence that the defendant in a “Peeping Tom” case had committed the same offense 2 years previously in the same general vicinity was not admissible as an exception to the general rule excluding evidence of previous offenses. For other cases where remoteness of time has barred such evidence see Barber v. State, 95 Ga. App. 763 (98 SE2d 575); Waters v. State, 80 Ga. App. 559 (56 SE2d 924); Palmer v. State, 75 Ga. App. 789 (44 SE2d 567); and Brown v. State, 109 Ga. App. 212 (135 SE2d 480). See also Hunter v. State, 45 Ga. App. 512 (165 SE 314), where it was held that evidence that a defendant on trial for committing an abortion had committed the same offense upon a different woman several years before the offense for which he was then on trial was inadmissible.
“It is a fundamental principle in our system of jurisprudence, intended to protect the individual who is charged with crime, and to insure him of a fair and impartial trial before an unbiased jury, that the general character of the defendant and his conduct in other transactions is irrelevant unless the defendant chooses to put his character in issue.” Bacon v. State, 209 Ga. 261, 262, supra. Any attempt to further chisel away at this fundamental rule should be rejected by the courts.
I am authorized to state that Judges Pannell, Deen, and Evans concur in this dissent.