Court Opinion

ID: 9583717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:29.402217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:45.592864
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
The majority opinion affirms Roebuck’s conviction by concluding that an expert’s opinion corroborates an accomplice’s testimony that *208Roebuck committed the crime. In fact, however, the only corroborating evidence is the inadmissible hearsay upon which the expert relied. But because Roebuck did not object to the admission of the hearsay, and because we should overrule our prior cases holding that hearsay has no probative value even when admitted without objection, I would hold that the hearsay admitted in this case can serve as the necessary corroborating evidence. Therefore, I concur in the judgment.
1. There must be at least some evidence to corroborate the accomplice’s testimony.2 The State’s expert testified that a palm print taken from a vehicle at the scene of the crime matched a palm print on a 1985 print card labeled “Gregory Roebuck.” The majority opinion relies on this expert testimony as its sole corroborating evidence. But the expert testimony alone was not enough to connect Roebuck to the crime - the prints upon which the expert relied still had to be proven to be Roebuck’s. The State only proved this through the admission of the print card.
The print card was hearsay because it rested “mainly on the veracity and competency of other persons”;3 namely, the officer who took Roebuck’s print and labeled the print card. The State did not lay a proper foundation for admission of the print card under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, nor was there any attempt to establish its admissibility under another exception to the hearsay rule. Thus, it was inadmissible hearsay.
The majority’s opinion has effectively allowed an expert to serve as a conduit for introducing inadmissible evidence. The Court of Appeals has cautioned that such reasoning “would permit the admission of hearsay, speculation, and unsupported opinion, by the simple expedient of asking an expert to read the inadmissible matter into the record or testify to it while asserting that he relied upon it.”4 The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in a case presenting similar circumstances, reversed a lower court for allowing a physician to introduce the out-of-court diagnoses of other physicians in the absence of some specific exception to the hearsay rule.5 Other state and federal courts have expressed similar concerns regarding this use of expert testimony.6 Expert testimony should not provide a *209means for circumventing established hearsay rules.
2. We have long held that hearsay evidence has no probative value. Under this rationale, even though Roebuck failed to object to the admission of the print card and thus waived his right to appeal this issue,7 the print card alone cannot corroborate the accomplice’s testimony. For the reasons set forth below, we should overrule our prior holdings and hold that hearsay evidence can have probative value if admitted into evidence without objection. Under such a holding, the print card would be sufficient corroborating evidence in this case.
The rule that hearsay has no probative value even if unobjected to at trial was abandoned by the U.S. Supreme Court in the early twentieth century in Diaz v. United States.8 No state other than Georgia still follows this rule.9 The source of this rule, which has been described as a legal fiction,10 is not a Georgia statute, but “some mid-19th century cases that were simply reflecting a view prevalent at that time.”11
This rule creates an exception to the general rule in Georgia that errors not objected to at trial cannot be raised on appeal.12 But there is no good reason for the exception. It cannot be said that all hearsay admitted without objection is so unreliable that it should never be considered. Indeed, some hearsay has such guarantees of trustworthiness that it is admitted into evidence under an exception to the hearsay rule. Like all other admitted evidence, hearsay admitted without objection should be considered by the trier of fact and given its appropriate weight. It should not be categorically denied from consideration simply because it is hearsay.
I have great respect for the principles of stare decisis. But as I recently noted in Hudson v. State, “‘the rule of stare decisis is a wholesome one, but should not be used to sanctify and perpetuate error. . . .’ ”13 The rule in question has been abandoned by the U.S. Supreme Court and every other state, and there is no good reason for continuing to follow it in Georgia. On the contrary, our continued *210adherence to this rule can have unfortunate consequences, as evidenced by the majority’s opinion in this case. Because the majority cannot rely on the print card to corroborate, it improperly uses expert testimony for this purpose. I would overrule our longstanding rule and rely on the print card to corroborate.
Decided September 22,2003 —
Reconsideration denied October 17,2003.
Charles H. Frier, for appellant.
Paul L. Howard, Jr., District Attorney, Bettieanne C. Hart, Christopher M. Quinn, Assistant District Attorneys, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Jill M. Zubler, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

 See OCGA § 24-4-8 (in “felony cases where the only witness is an accomplice, the testimony of a single witness is not sufficient. Nevertheless, corroborating circumstances may dispense with the necessity for the testimony of a second witness. . . .”); Cummings v. State, 240 Ga. 104,105 (239 SE2d 529) (1977) (“[s]light evidence ... is all that is required to corroborate [an] accomplice’s testimony and support the verdict”).

 OCGA § 24-3-1 (a).

 Loper v. Drury, 211 Ga. App. 478, 482 (440 SE2d 32) (1993).

 Grant v. Lewis/Boyle, Inc., 408 Mass. 269, 272-274 (557 NE2d 1136) (Mass. 1990).

 See, e.g., Department of Corrections v. Williams, 549 So.2d 1071 (Fla. App. 1989) (“an *209expert’s testimony may not be used merely to serve as a conduit to place otherwise inadmissible evidence before a jury”); Kay v. First Continental Trading, 976 F. Supp. 772, 774 (N.D. Ill. 1997) (warning of using expert testimony “as a vehicle for creating a “back door’ hearsay exception”).

 See Acliese v. State, 274 Ga. 19, 20 (2) (549 SE2d 78) (2001).

 223 U. S. 442, 450 (32 SC 250, 56 LE 500) (1912) (“of the fact that it was hearsay, it suffices to observe that when evidence of that character is admitted without objection it is to be considered and given its natural probative effect as if it were in law admissible”).

 Paul S. Milich, Georgia Rules of Evidence, § 16.7.

 Id.

 Id.

 See Acliese, 274 Ga. at 20 (2); Boutwell v. State, 256 Ga. 63, 66 (344 SE2d 222) (1986).

 273 Ga. 124, 128 (538 SE2d 751) (2000) (Fletcher, P. J., concurring specially).