Court Opinion

ID: 9584756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:52:24.525879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:05.147578
License: Public Domain

Pope, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree that these appeals should be dismissed pursuant to the procedure set forth in Rowland v. State, 264 Ga. 872 (452 SE2d 756) (1995) and that the language set forth at the end of the majority opinion should be incorporated in the form dismissal order. I write separately because I do not agree with the majority’s criticisms of Mitchell v. State, 214 Ga. App. 69 (447 SE2d 140) (1994).
I concurred in the majority opinion in Mitchell because the procedure it set forth ensured the defendant’s awareness of his right to an out-of-time appeal and how to exercise it, while the procedure set forth in the dissent did not. And I still do not see the problems with Mitchell that the majority sees. I now believe, however, that perhaps the procedure established in Rowland is the optimal compromise. On the one hand, it removes from the trial court the burden of ensuring the defendant knows his rights; but on the other, it does not simply assume, as the dissent in Mitchell did, that the defendant will be aware of his right to an out-of-time appeal or that the same attorney who failed to file a brief in his case will inform him of that right. In any case, it is the procedure we must now use.
I am authorized to state that Judge Blackburn joins in this special concurrence.