Court Opinion

ID: 9574533
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:05:45.433009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:43.215431
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the majority that the felony murder conviction must be reversed because of the erroneous admission into evidence of the existence of life insurance policies on the life of the deceased, naming the defendant as beneficiary. I disagree, however, with the majority’s holding in Division 2, because, in my view, it was also error to preclude the defendant from presenting evidence that the victim had been stabbed by his second wife while he was intoxicated and physically abusing her. This evidence was admissible, not to prove the victim’s violent character, but to show the defendant acted reasonably in obtaining a knife from the kitchen while her intoxicated husband began physically abusing her. See Lolley v. State, 259 Ga. 605, 607, 610 (385 SE2d 285) (1989) (Weltner, J., concurring; Gregory, J., dissenting); Hill v. State, 259 Ga. 655, 657 (386 SE2d 133) (1989) (Weltner, J., concurring). Notwithstanding that the defendant here claimed accident, rather than justification, I see no distinction between her attempt to use evidence of the victim’s prior act in support of her claim of reasonableness in obtaining the knife, and the attempts by the defendants in Lolley and Hill to use evidence of specific acts by the victims in support of their claims of justification.
Accordingly, I dissent to Division 2, but concur in the judgment.