Court Opinion

ID: 9608436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:12:37.395304+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:00.918811
License: Public Domain

Ruffin, Presiding Judge,
concurring and concurring specially.
I concur in the Court’s judgment, but because I have special concerns regarding Division 2 relating to the invocation of the Deity in final argument, I write separately to express those concerns.
During closing argument for the State, the prosecutor stated, “How only by the grace of God we’re not here on a murder prosecution, ladies and gentlemen.” The majority found that this argument “was a reasonable inference drawn from the evidence.” I disagree.
“Prosecutors are granted wide latitude in conducting closing *813argument, and defining the bounds of such argument is within the trial court’s discretion.”2 However, the argument should be confined to reasonable inferences raised only by the evidence.3 While it is reasonable to infer that someone shot twice at close range is fortunate to escape death from such shots, I nonetheless find it inappropriate to invoke religion in making such an inference.
Decided June 19, 2003.
Sharon L. Hopkins, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Anne E, Green, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
The Supreme Court of Georgia has noted, particularly in death penalty cases, that prosecutors should avoid “references to religion which invite jurors to base their verdict on extraneous matters not in evidence.”4
5The Court has been especially troubled by instances where the prosecutor has directly quoted the Bible and has found that such references “invoked a higher moral authority and diverted the jury from the discretion provided to them under state law.”6 While the prosecutor in this case did not go so far as to quote the Bible, the underlying problem that the Supreme Court feared, that jurors might rely on religious beliefs and laws to reach a verdict instead of Georgia law, remains a robust risk.
However, in reviewing the long line of cases espousing this principle, courts have declined to reverse convictions simply because “passing, oratorical references to religious texts,” biblical law, and God were made in closing argument.6 And, as here, where the comment was of a passing nature, reversal is not mandated. Thus, I concur in the result reached by the majority in Division 2, and I concur fully in the remaining Divisions.

 (Punctuation omitted.) McMahon v. State, 258 Ga. App. 512, 516 (4) (574 SE2d 548) (2002).

 See Leon v. State, 237 Ga. App. 99, 103-104 (2) (c) (513 SE2d 227) (1999).

 Carr v. State, 267 Ga. 547, 556 (7) (c) (480 SE2d 583) (1997).

 Carruthers v. State, 272 Ga. 306, 308-310 (2) (528 SE2d 217) (2000) (death sentence overturned because of biblical references in closing argument). See Hammond v. State, 264 Ga. 879, 886-887 (8) (c) (452 SE2d 745) (1995) (quoting Bible, although improper, harmless).

 Carruthers, supra at 309. See Western & Atlantic R. Co. v. York, 128 Ga. 687, 689 (2) (58 SE 183) (1907) (“Counsel may bring to his use in the discussion of the case well-established historical facts and may allude to such principles of divine law relating to transactions of men as may be appropriate to the case.”); Conner v. State, 251 Ga. 113, 122-123 (6) (303 SE2d 266) (1983) (same); Hill v. State, 263 Ga. 37, 45-46 (19) (427 SE2d 770) (1993) (brevity of religious references did not warrant overturning sentence); Carr, supra at 556 (even if reference asking jury to “pray” was improper, it was too brief to have impacted the case).