Court Opinion

ID: 9570813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:26:40.699471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:54.700249
License: Public Domain

Hall, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority opinion in Division 6 holds that the assistant district attorney’s argument, which referred to what another defendant testified to in another trial, was a *690reasonable deduction from the evidence. I dissent.
During the state’s closing arguments, the following transpired:
"Assistant District Attorney: . . . what that did was create three separate trials. What that did was bring Looney in here at the last term of Court and Looney said, Billy Joe Burnett is the one who did the shooting —
"Defense Counsel: Your Honor, I’m sorry, I would move for a mistrial at this time by the District Attorney testifying as to what one of the other defendants has testified to previously. This isn’t in evidence in this case at all, and I would ask for a mistrial at the present time.
"The Court: I will sustain the objection and I’ll overrule the Motion for Mistrial and the Jury will disregard whatever was testified to in the previous case, and don’t refer to any more testimony of the previous case.
"Assistant District Attorney: Yes, sir, I stand rebuked. Ladies and gentlemen of the Jury what that enables them to do is have one of them come in here and point at the other and then the other one come in here and point at the other one. Now —
"Defense Counsel: Your Honor, I renew my objection. He’s accomplishing the same thing that the Court has just cautioned him about.
"Assistant District Attorney: If the Court please, all I’m doing is drawing a logical inference that there are three defendants —
"The Court: I’ll overrule the objection, the last one.”
It should be noted that this was far from a clear case, as was indicated by the inconsistent testimony from the families of Looney and appellant, and the necessity of an Allen type charge to break a jury deadlock. The first remark of the prosecutor was based on testimony which was not in evidence in this case, and which could not have been introduced without calling Looney to testify (which the state chose not to do). The court properly sustained the objection, yet the assistant district attorney continued the same line of argument, which reminded the jury of what he had just stated, and increased its impact. The objection to this argument was overruled.
If the prosecutor had not continued the objectionable line of argument, I would hesitate to find harmful error *691given the curative instruction. See Watkins v. State, 237 Ga. 678, 682-683 (229 SE2d 465) (1976). But I cannot ignore reality and hold that the curative instruction completely wiped the statement from the minds of the jury. The second statement took on the prejudicial effect of the first since it was so clearly a part of the same line of argument. The prejudicial impact was increased by the repetition, and yet the trial court sanctioned the latter statement rather than rebuking the prosecutor and giving curative instructions, or granting a mistrial, as required by Code Ann. § 81-1009. See Johnson v. State, 238 Ga. 59 (230 SE2d 869) (1976); Mitchum v. State, 11 Ga. 615 (1852); Winget v. State, 138 Ga. App. 433, 436 (226 SE2d 608) (1976). In my opinion, this is reversible error. Id.
The state contends that there was evidence of Looney’s testimony admitted at defendant’s request. This is not the case — the only reference to Looney’s accusation was hearsay testimony by Mrs. Looney (a state’s witness in this case) involving an out-of-court statement. By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that this line of argument was a proper deduction from the evidence.
Only three people knew what actually happened. The only one who testified at this trial was appellant. How can it be said that it was harmless error for the state to inform the jury that one of the other individuals with personal knowledge of what actually happened had accused appellant of shooting Bowen?
I respectfully dissent.