Court Opinion

ID: 9599901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:22:13.538498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:47.557829
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
1. In reversing the conviction, the majority relies upon the case of Brooks v. State, 249 Ga. 583, 586 (292 SE2d 694) (1982). The error in that case was the failure of the trial court to give a jury instruction on the elements of voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included offense. There, the record showed that the defendant’s wife had taunted him about her promiscuous conduct.
2. The jury here was charged as to voluntary manslaughter. The error claimed in this case centers upon limiting instructions by the court given in conjunction with the admission of expert testimony.
3. This case differs from Brooks in two significant aspects: the trial court gave a full and correct charge on voluntary manslaughter; there was no evidence of taunting by this victim. Instead, Strickland said that his wife expressed doubt as to whether the two of them could effect a reconciliation, in that “she had sex with so many different people so much that it just didn’t mean anything to her anymore.” His testimony continued: “And she started naming the names of the people. There was some I knew about, like Floyd and Willie. . .and she recounted this and we weren’t arguing. We weren’t fussing. She was saying all this in just a normal tone of conversation.” (Emphasis supplied.)
4. Hence, it might be argued that, as there was no evidence of provocation, there was no necessity of the charge on manslaughter; and, without such a necessity, the questioned instruction (as to the the relevance of wife’s sexual conduct) was not error. We need not resolve that inquiry, however, as it should be clear that if error there were, it was cured by later instruction.
5. The trial court advised the jury that testimony concerning “foreign pubic hairs” found upon the body of the victim was admitted solely for the purpose of determining whether the conversations to which Strickland testified had occurred, and cautioned the jury that “whether the deceased did or not have sexual relations with another is not relevant to the issues in this case.” This instruction was re*235peated at the close of the evidence, in that portion of the charge treating expert testimony. Later, however, the trial court advised the jury:
Decided June 24, 1987
Reconsideration denied July 8, 1987.
Robert Strickland, Jr., pro se.
Carl P. Greenberg, for appellant.
Robert E. Wilson, District Attorney, Thomas S. Clegg, Susan Brooks, Assistant District Attorneys, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Dennis R. Dunn, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
“I instruct you that a person commits the offense of voluntary manslaughter when he causes the death of another human being under circumstances which would otherwise be murder, and if he acts solely as a result of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from serious provocation sufficient to excite such passion in a reasonable person. However, if there should have been an interval between the provocation and the killing, sufficient for the voice of reason and humanity to be heard, of which the jury in all cases shall be the judge, the killing shall be attributed to deliberate revenge and be punished as murder.”
Further, the trial court stated “[W]hat circumstances will justify an excitement of passion and exclude all idea of deliberation or malice, the law does not undertake to say. . . . It is for the jury to determine whether the chain of circumstances and conduct were sufficient to engender what the law refers to as an irresistible passion. Likewise, the question of cooling time is exclusively for determination by the jury.” (Emphasis supplied.)
6. Unlike the defendant in Brooks, Strickland was given a full and correct charge on voluntary manslaughter. The jury was instructed that it might consider any matter in determining whether there was sufficient provocation. The jury heard, at great length and without limitation, testimony as to the conduct of the wife, and as to Strickland’s reaction thereto. There was no proscription upon Strickland’s counsel in arguments to the jury. (In short, the case went to the jury on a defense of insanity, and the jury rejected that defense.)
7. Because the existence of error is itself doubtful, and because any error was cured by later instructions, this conviction should be affirmed.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Bell join in this dissent.