Court Opinion

ID: 9563310
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:38:30.929128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:47.848508
License: Public Domain

SEARS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Under the plain language of the Interstate Agreement on De-tainers, “in the event that an action on the indictment ... is not brought to trial within the period provided [herein], the appropriate court. . . shall enter an order dismissing the same with prejudice.”2 It is undisputed that the State failed to bring the charges at issue in this case to trial within the 180 days provided by the IAD.3
It is also undisputed that the State directly violated the plain language of the IAD’s restriction that the receiving state’s temporary custody “shall be only for the purpose of permitting prosecution on the charge or charges... which form the basis of the detainer or detainers or for prosecution on any other charge or charges arising out of the same transaction.”4
Under today’s majority ruling, however, the State’s two wrongs do make a right. The State is now free to ignore completely the IAD’s time restrictions and other requirements for pending charges against a defendant that it chooses to omit from its detainer. Though that may be a direct violation of the IAD’s plain language, it is a violation that carries no consequence. The State would be ill-advised to actually comply with these provisions, because doing so would render it unable to flout the IAD’s time limits and other restrictions.
Perhaps the majority’s deference to the State’s disregard of the IAD’s plain requirements would seem less troublesome if this Court consistently treated those requirements as mere formalities. But when the shoe is on the other foot, and the defendant fails to strictly adhere to the IAD’s formal requirements, this Court properly denies that defendant the benefits provided by the IAD.5 Thus, when a *227defendant initiates LAD proceedings by facsimile rather than certified mail, he is not entitled to enforce the LAD’s time restrictions against the State.6
Decided February 13, 2006.
Brown & Gill, Angela B. Dillon, for appellant.
Daniel J. Porter, District Attorney, Matthew D. Crosby, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
I cannot deny that the majority rests in good company in today’s ruling. The majority of courts across the country have chosen to excuse the states from any consequence for violating the LAD’s custodial restrictions. But the majority today misses a good opportunity to showcase its commitment to fairness by giving meaning to the restrictions that the LAD deliberately places upon the State. Instead, the majority chooses the safety of the larger pack and acquiesces in the interpretation of the LAD as a single-edged sword that the State can disregard as it sees fit. Accordingly, I cannot join today’s ruling.
I am authorized to state that Justice Benham joins in this dissent.

 OCGA§ 42-6-20 (Art. V (c)).

 Id. at Art. III (a).

 Id. at Art. V (d). See also id. at Art. V (g) (“[f]or all purposes other than that for which temporary custody as provided in this agreement is exercised, the prisoner shall be deemed to remain in the custody of and subject to the jurisdiction of the sending state.”).

 Clater v. State, 266 Ga. 511, 512-513 (467 SE2d 537) (1996).

 Id.