Court Opinion

ID: 9592922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:17:59.917339+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:27.269460
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the result of the opinion, and with the judgment. I write to discuss a problem in the trial of cases, as reflected in this appeal.
1. The problem is OCGA § 5-5-24 (b), which requires that the charge to the jury be given after argument of counsel. What that means is:
(a) the trial judge must describe to counsel the anticipated elements of the charge, before it is given;
(b) the lawyers must remember the trial court’s delineation of the charge, and must address the application of legal principles in the arguments only tentatively — that is, they continually must intone the ritualistic phrase: “I anticipate that the court will charge you, etc. . . .”
(c) the jury must learn from the lawyers, and must recall, several versions of what “the law” may be, and then must disregard all gradations that differ from what the trial court says “the law” is — after the argument.
2. That order of proceeding is, of course, the opposite of rational. In accord with the basic logic of the syllogism, the jury is supposed to take “the law” (major premise) from the court; take “the facts” (minor premise) from the evidence; and return its verdict (conclusion), which should be consistent with the law and the truth. Instead, the Code section requires that, after hearing all the evidence from which the jury could derive the minor premise (“the facts”), the lawyers of the case then speculate before the jury as to potential major premises (“the law”) that the trial court may declare to the jury. As the final act of the whole event, the trial court lays before the jury the major premise (“the law”). Thus, the trial court tells the jury, at the end of the trial, what it should have known from the beginning of the trial.
The situation is this: in the evidentiary phase, lawyers dispute for days what happened, with practically no effort made to inform the *232jury as to why whatever happened might be significant. In the argument, they again dispute what happened (as their differing interpretations of the evidence might be significant under competing theories of recovery and defense), based upon principles of law that they anticipate will be the subject of the court’s charge. At the end of the proceedings, the trial court finally tells the jury “the law” that the jury needs to know in order to find “the facts.”
Decided May 10, 1991.
Allen M. Trapp, Jr., for appellant.
William G. Hamrick, Jr., District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Mary H. Hines, for appellee.
3. A better practice would be to commence the trial with a substantial charge that outlines the major principles of law that likely will be raised by the evidence. After the evidence is closed, the court should conduct a conference concerning the content of the charge, and then give the charge. Counsel, having heard the charge, then may argue the principles of law as instructed by the court. Following the argument, the court may conclude the case with brief instructions concerning the form of the verdict.