Court Opinion

ID: 9581231
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:12:50.886011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:47.866834
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The State earnestly urges that we insulted Gibbons v. State, 248 Ga. 858 (286 SE2d 717) by holding this child’s recanted accusation could not corroborate this defendant’s confession. But in fact, we held *61that, granting the recanted accusation can be probative evidence of corroboration under Gibbons, the jury nevertheless was not told it must find defendant’s confession was corroborated, i.e., that her original accusation was true beyond a reasonable doubt, before it could find guilt based on the confession. The weight to lie given her recanted accusation is purely a jury question; it is not for us to find her accusation was true and hence to conclude that the corpus delicti was uncontradictedly established and that the failure to charge the jury on the necessity of corroboration was harmless. The error allowed the jury to think it could convict upon defendant’s confession alone and caused “substantial error . . . which was harmful as a matter of law.” OCGA § 5-5-24 (c). The opinion is clear enough.
Decided April 17, 1986
Rehearing denied May 9, 1986
Christina L. Hunt, for appellant.
Willis B. Sparks III, District Attorney, Thomas J. Matthews, Jennie E. Rogers, Virgil L. Adams, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.

Motion for rehearing denied.