Court Opinion

ID: 9583284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:37:02.19054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:55.474756
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur with the judgment and with the opinion as to Divisions 1, 2 and 4. As to Division 3, however, I concur with the results but respectfully set forth below my problems with the reasoning.
The trial court allowed the mother to state the content of the child’s conversation with her for the limited purpose of explaining the mother’s conduct.
Even if the mother’s conduct was not an issue (I agree with the majority that it was), the conduct of the child certainly was. What the child did about the act defendant is alleged to have done to her is relevant. If, being age 5, she never told anybody about it, the truth of the allegation could be more highly suspect. If she did tell someone about it near the time of the alleged act against her, would that fact not tend to corroborate the truth of her testimony? And if so, then the content of what she then said, compared with what she testified several years later, is certainly relevant.
In addition, defendant attacked the child’s credibility, suggesting that the mother rehearsed the child. So the mother’s conduct was an issue because an issue was made as to whether the mother did rehearse the child. The evidence of what the child told her would tend to show that the mother did not rehearse the child and that what the mother did about it was based on the child’s statements to her and not on what she, the mother, fabricated.
And, since the five-year-old child told her mother at the first opportunity she had to do so, it fits the res gestae exception to the hearsay rule. The indicia of credibility are present: a child in these cir*399cumstances would probably tell someone, and that someone would most likely be a parent or someone standing in a parent’s place. The statement, which included the complaint that her vaginal area hurt currently and caused trouble when she tried to void, was corroborated by the mother’s testimony regarding what she saw at the time, that is, that the child’s vaginal area was red and sore. Of course, the weight of the child’s statement to her mother is up to the jury.
Moreover, the victim-speaker as well as the mother-hearer, were subject to thorough and sifting cross-examination at the trial about the words of that conversation.
I, therefore, do not reach any question of the application of the “highly improbable” rule.
This case has some similarities with Cuzzort v. State, 173 Ga. App. 157 (325 SE2d 826) (1984).