Court Opinion

ID: 9853215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:44:36.744288+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:42.905120
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Presiding Justice,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s holding in Division 3 that the life sentence recidivist provision of OCGA § 16-13-30 (d) does not require that a defendant be convicted of a first offense prior to the commission of the “second or subsequent offense.” This is in accordance with our decision in State v. Hendrixson, 251 Ga. 853, 854-855 (310 SE2d 526) (1984) and with the more recent decision of the Court of Appeals in State v. Sears, 202 Ga. App. 352, 354-355 (8) (414 SE2d 494) (1991).
Nevertheless, the purpose of the recidivist statute is not served without requiring a prior conviction, based on a prior offense, before mandating a life sentence under OCGA § 16-13-30 (d) for a second offense. As we pointed out in Grant v. State, 258 Ga. 299, 300 (368 SE2d 737) (1988), citing Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U. S. 263, 284-285 (100 SC 1133, 63 LE2d 382) (1980), the purpose of a recidivist statute is to deter repeat offenders, and, at some point, to segregate those offenders from the rest of society for an extended period of time. The deterrent aspect occurs primarily with judicial intervention; that is, when the defendant has been convicted and sentenced, and informed that he will face a life sentence if he commits another, similar felony. Without this judicial intervention, a defendant is not normally put on notice of the very severe punishment facing him under the recidivist statute if he violates the law again. Indeed, in Rummel, in upholding the Texas recidivist statute against a constitutional challenge under the Eighth Amendment, the majority of the U. S. Supreme Court noted the deterrent nature of the Texas statute:
[U]nder [the Texas statute] a three-time felon receives a mandatory life sentence, with possibility of parole, only if commission and conviction of each succeeding felony followed conviction for the preceding one, and only if each prior conviction was followed by actual imprisonment. Given this necessary sequence, a recidivist must twice demonstrate that conviction and actual imprisonment do not deter him from returning to crime once he is released. One in Rummel’s position has been both graphically informed of the consequences of lawlessness and given an opportunity to reform, all to no avail.
Id. 445 U. S. at 278,100 SC at 1141. Unlike the Texas statute, OCGA § 16-13-30 (d), as we have interpreted it, allows a mandatory life sentence for a second offense, even where the defendant has not first been convicted, sentenced, and “informed of the consequences of [his] *214lawlessness and given an opportunity to reform.”4 Clearly, the primary purpose of deterrence is not served under these circumstances.
Decided June 7, 1993
Reconsideration denied June 21, 1993.
Summer & Summer, Daniel A. Summer, for appellant.
C. Andrew Fuller, District Attorney, William M. Brownell, Jr., Assistant District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Susan V. Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew P. Stone, Staff Attorney, for appellee.
However, because of the precedent cited by the majority, I concur in the opinion.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham joins in this concurrence.

 For example, in the typical undercover operation, a defendant may engage in several illicit drug transactions over the span of days, or even hours, and thereafter be selectively prosecuted so that the terms of the recidivist statute may be enforced against him.