Court Opinion

ID: 9851134
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:07:42.941856+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:49.315239
License: Public Domain

Felton, Justice,
dissenting. The appellant, in my opinion, has alleged an error which attacks the validity of the trial on the ground that his State and Federal Constitutional rights were violated. In Division 3, the majority passes on both questions, so it is unnecessary for me to belabor the question whether a State constitutional question is raised.
1. I dissent from the judgment insofar as the majority holds that the trial involved no State constitutional right.
2. As to the ruling that no Federal constitutional right has been violated, I am compelled to concur, against my will, judgment, logic and common sense. Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, supra. While I am bound by that decision, I by no means agree with it. I agree with the dissent by Chief Justice Warren. The Supreme Court held in the Spencer case (p. 575), that the showing of other crimes did not violate the Federal Constitution because the question was a State question presumably handled by State courts by precautionary instructions. (The U. S. Supreme Court has recently reversed itself as to one situation, as to which a similar ruling was made as to precautionary instructions. Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (88 SC 1620, 20 LE2d 476)). I shall not quote Chief Justice Warren except as follows: “Of course it flouts human nature to suppose that a jury would not consider a defendant’s previous trouble with the law in deciding whether he has committed the crime currently charged against him. As Mr. Justice Jackson put it in a famous phrase ‘[t]he naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury ... all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction.’ Krulewitch v. U. S., 336 U. S. 440, 453 . . . Mr. Justice Jackson’s assessment has received support from the most ambitious empirical study of jury behavior that has been attempted. See Kalven & Zeisel, The American Jury, pp. 127-130, 177-180.”
*278In a recent case the author of the opinion stated the proposition that the introduction of previous convictions denies a defendant a fair and impartial trial and due process of law, and the court thought, in the case being considered, that certain full bench decisions of this court precluded a ruling contrary to these decisions. Croker v. Smith, 225 Ga. 529 (169 SE2d 787). It seems to me that these decisions would not be a bar to a ruling in this case that the defendant’s State constitutional due process rights have been violated for the reason that here there is no attack on a legislative Act or on the inclusion of the previous offenses in the indictment or evidence. The attack here is upon the making known of such other offenses to the jury prior to their decision on the question of guilt on the single present charge. This is quite different from an attack on a statute or even on the admission of such other crimes in evidence. I think that the attack here made is meritorious and that the judgment should be reversed.