Court Opinion

ID: 9625190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:30:48.02507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:02.594790
License: Public Domain

RUFFIN, Presiding Judge,
concurring and concurring specially.
Although I am concerned that the jury did not completely adhere to the trial court’s instructions regarding the verdict form for the aggravated assault charges, I fully concur in the majority’s opinion. As the majority notes, Dupree failed to object to the form of the verdict at the time it was rendered. In fact, defense counsel specifically stated that he did not question the verdict’s form. Such failure to object “waives any complaint that the verdict was inconsistent, confusing, or otherwise irregular.”2
Furthermore, “[a] general verdict of guilty is by intendment of the law a verdict that the defendant is guilty of the highest offense charged in the indictment.”3 The jury in this case returned a general verdict of guilt as to Counts 2, 3, and 5, which charged that Dupree committed aggravated assault by assaulting “a peace officer engaged in the performance of his official duties, with a certain automobile, a deadly weapon in the way and manner used.” I agree with the *567majority that the highest offense charged in these counts is aggravated assault upon a peace officer.4 And the trial court instructed the jurors that if they found Dupree “guilty as charged, then the form of your verdict should be we, the jury, find the defendant guilty.” Accordingly, the jury’s verdict of guilt as to these counts authorized his convictions under OCGA § 16-5-21 (c).
Decided May 24, 2004.
Robert L. Stultz, for appellant.
Herbert E. Franklin, Jr., District Attorney, Michael J. Moeller, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

 See OCGA § 16-5-21 (c) (“A person who knowingly commits the offense of aggravated assault upon a peace officer while the peace officer is engaged in, or on account of the performance of, his or her official duties shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than five nor more than 20 years.”).

 Ellison v. State, 265 Ga. App. 446, 449 (3) (594 SE2d 675) (2004).

 Bissell v. State, 153 Ga. App. 564, 566 (2) (266 SE2d 238) (1980).