Court Opinion

ID: 9598776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:11:40.981426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:42.424961
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Justice,
concurring.
I fully concur with the majority opinion. I write separately to stress that Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808 (111 SC 2597, 115 LE2d 720) (1991) addresses only the narrow issue of the admissibility of evidence and argument relating to the personal characteristics or individuality of the victim and the impact of the crime on the victim’s family. Payne, 111 SC at 2604, 2611, n. 2, and 2614 (Souter, J., concurring). Payne also warns that if
a witness’ testimony or a prosecutor’s remark so infects the sentencing proceeding as to render it fundamentally unfair, the defendant may seek appropriate relief under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Id. at 2612 (O’Connor, J., concurring); see also id. at 2608. With those *409background considerations, the General Assembly has attempted to narrowly draft OCGA § 17-10-1.2 to permit victim impact evidence “only in such a manner and to such a degree as not to inflame or unduly prejudice the jury.” Id. at (a) (1).
Georgia’s district attorneys are skilled in the law and I believe they understand that the duty of the state’s attorney “in a criminal prosecution is not that [the state] shall win a case but that justice shall be done.” Evidence which “inflames or unduly prejudices the jury” violates due process and denies the accused’s constitutionally protected rights as pronounced by both the Supreme Court and this court. With this in mind, I urge district attorneys to cautiously approach the use of such victim impact evidence. It benefits neither the victim, the victim’s family, nor the public if successful advocacy results in the admission of irrelevant, prejudicial and inflammatory evidence which will then require new sentencing trials and further unduly delay the finality of death penalty cases.