Court Opinion

ID: 9565548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:23:32.487672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:44.294908
License: Public Domain

MELTON, Justice,
concurring specially.
The determination of harmless error [with respect to comments on a defendant’s pre-arrest silence] must be made on a case by case basis, taking into consideration the facts, the trial context of the error, and the prejudice created thereby as juxtaposed against the strength of the evidence of defendant’s guilt.
(Citation omitted.) Hill v. State, 250 Ga. 277, 283 (4) (a) (295 SE2d 518) (1982). With this standard in mind, I must agree that the harmless error analysis in Division 2 (b) of the majority opinion is appropriate in light of this Court’s holding in Jackson v. State, 282 Ga. 494, 497 (2) (651 SE2d 702) (2007) (despite prosecutor’s extensive and inappropriate cross-examination and closing argument regarding defendant’s pre-arrest silence, and despite defendant’s claim of self-defense, no reasonable likelihood existed that trial result would have been different in light of eyewitness and forensic *41evidence connecting defendant to crime). I write separately, however, to state my continued concern that harmless error has become an escape route for any error created by the State’s inappropriate comments on a defendant’s pre-arrest silence, regardless of the proportional strength of the evidence presented of a defendant’s guilt. See id. at 501 (proposing that “ ‘overwhelming evidence’ no longer depends upon the amount and quality of evidence of guilt adduced at trial. Instead, ‘overwhelming evidence’ has become the catch phrase that excuses all error”) (Hunstein, E J., dissenting) (citation omitted).
Here, the State argued,
[d]oes [Lampley] go back to see if [the victim] . . . [i]s okay? Does he call the police and say: there has been an incident here. This guy had my car. He wouldn’t give it back to me, and this is what I had to do. I chased him down and I tried to get my car and it got out of hand. No. He doesn’t do any of that.
As the majority correctly concludes, this argument “constitute^] an improper comment on Lampley’s silence or failure to come forward.” Indeed, the State’s entire argument implies that Lampley deliberately stabbed the victim and left him for dead (considering the fact that he did not “go back to see if [the victim]... was okay”), and that he did not stab the victim in any way that could have been construed as being in self-defense or in any manner otherwise justified by law (because Lampley did not tell the police that “this is what [he] had to do . . . [when things] got out of hand”).
However, the evidence to counterbalance the harm created by the State’s argument consisted almost entirely of the testimony from Montrell Cox, who gave several inconsistent and conflicting stories to the police. There was no physical evidence recovered by police that connected Lampley to the crime, such as the murder weapon or any blood evidence from the crime scene or Cox’s car that would have pointed to Lampley’s involvement. In fact, the only blood evidence relating to Lampley that was referenced at trial was completely unrelated to the stabbing of the victim, as it consisted of Lampley’s own blood appearing on his shirt and his watch from an unrelated shooting. The State even appears to give a nod to the relatively weak nature of the overall evidence, by conceding during its closing argument that the jury “may not have every question answered . . . [b]ecause only [Lampley, the deceased victim, and Cox] were there [the night of the murder] and only those three persons know what happened.”
In light of the harm created by the State’s improper argument, *42and in light of the questionable strength of the evidence presented at trial that could have potentially negated that harm, I am concerned that a harmless error analysis here is somewhat problematic. However, despite my concerns, our holding in Jackson, supra, dictates that a harmless error analysis in this case is appropriate.
Decided June 30, 2008.
J. Scott Key, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Christopher M. Quinn, Bettieanne C. Hart, Assistant District Attorneys, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Sheila E. Gallow, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.