Court Opinion

ID: 9602126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:52:00.229154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:09.383733
License: Public Domain

Evans, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment in this case, which affirms as to conviction, and reverses as to the sentence. But I wish to point out that the defendant’s character was put in issue by a state’s witness, who testified he wanted to see defendant about some business he had with defendant as to car stealing. The trial judge naturally did not wish to have a mistrial, so he repeated the answer given by state’s witness, calling it "stolen cars,” inquired of the jurors if they could erase this remark from their minds, and each juror nodded his head affirmatively. But could they erase such pointed and damaging evidence from their minds? Unless each juror possessed the power of self-hypnosis, which is a talent bestowed begrudgingly and rarely on humans, they could not do so! Could you or I so shape and bend our minds as to eliminate, completely erase and shut out of our minds this testimony? All of us know we could not. And yet the Supreme Court of Georgia, as is pointed out by the majority opinion, has held that such a question by the court and such responses by the jurors cures the error! Far from it! If anything, the question increased the damage. While I am bound by those decisions cited by the majority, I feel that a new trial should be granted because of this error. Contrary to the majority opinion’s assertion that the evidence was not responsive to the question, I respectfully show that the district attorney asked such an all-inclusive question, to wit: "Tell the court and jury exactly what you did, what you saw, what you know, and if you made any investigation, what that investigation *376was,” that it would have been almost impossible for any answer to be unresponsive under the breadth of the question.