Court Opinion

ID: 9567912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:58:59.281672+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:23:15.866341
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant contends we misunderstood his argument as to the State’s failure to prove chain of custody of the rape kit. Appellant complained on appeal that some items which the forensic expert testified she received in the kit were “[not] mentioned” by the examining physician, but this failure of the physician to mention putting in the kit every item the forensic witness had noted as having received, does not suggest tampering or contamination. At best, it indicates a failure of the physician to remember every item she placed in the kit. Appellant’s objection to the exhibit at trial was based only upon the inability of the transporting officer to remember this kit among 13 transported. Appellant did not object at trial that the rape kit evidence *323was irrelevant because he did not dispute the fact of intercourse, or that the absence from the kit of some of the items, including a tampon, was somehow incriminating or caused prejudice in the jury’s mind which resulted in the guilty verdict. None of the items which the doctor failed to mention was in the kit when it was given to the jury, and none of them was material to the question of the victim’s consent. This includes the “used tampon,” which the forensic expert did not describe or explain, and to which she neither attached any evidentiary significance nor was asked for any. There is therefore nothing in the record to show that any of the items had any probative value, or what such probative value it might have had by being absent from the kit as it was given to the jury.
Decided September 11, 1990
Rehearing denied October 19, 1990
John H. Tarpley, Corinne M. Milsteen, for appellant.
Robert E. Wilson, District Attorney, Barbara B. Conroy, Desiree L. Sutton, J. Michael McDaniel, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
Appellant insists that based upon a remark, which we regard as gratuitous, made in Curtis v. State, 236 Ga. 362, 363 (223 SE2d 721), the jury should be given the opportunity via the jury charge to determine whether the victim’s apparent consent to intercourse was “induced by reasonable apprehension, or whether such apprehension was unreasonable and . . . pretextual.” Curtis most assuredly did not mean to create an opportunity for a rape defendant to argue that the victim’s fear of intercourse with him was “unreasonable,” and that therefore he should not be found guilty of rape even though lack of consent was proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether the victim’s stated fear is pretextual is another matter; this goes to the question of consent, and, as we clearly held, the jury may take into account evidence that is incredible or “is of such extraordinary character that it bears on its face the earmark of the unbelievable.” Peters v. State, 177 Ga. 772, 775 (171 SE 266). As to the issue of consent, the victim’s testimony as to her fears may be examined for its credibility, but not for its reasonableness. The jury may find her testimony as to consent is unreasonable, but it would be error to allow the jury to determine the reasonableness of her fears.

Motion for rehearing denied.