Court Opinion

ID: 9853990
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:58:53.070746+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:52.019989
License: Public Domain

Been, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
It is indeed true, as the majority opinion suggests, that the rules regarding burden of proof are highly confusing. I am of the opinion that at this point in the case law we are bound by Chandle v. State, 230 Ga. 574 (3) (198 SE2d 289), State v. McNeill, 234 Ga. 696 (217 SE2d 281), and similar Supreme Court cases. (Also note Lord v. State, 235 Ga. 342 (219 SE2d 425), and Gibbons v. State, 136 Ga. App. 609). However, that there are such things as "affirmative defenses” is demonstrated by Code § 26-907. One rational distinction between all of these defenses and defenses like alibi, which is also, in one sense, affirmative, is that in the chapter nine defenses (as also in insanity) the defendant does not really contest that he did the things which the state denominates a crime, and, this being true, he is forced to go on in some manner to explain why the acts he did are not culpable. Thus, in a way, these defenses have something in common with an insanity defense in that although the defendant did the act there is a legal reason why he should not be punished for it. Alibi, on the other hand, while also an affirmative defense, is not a defense where the defendant can adopt the fact situation *739urged by the state, and continue by showing further facts which either justify or render him not responsible for the effects of the act. Alibi merely shows the impossibility of his having committed the act at all.
So construed, the decision of Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684 (95 SC 1881, 44 LE2d 508), does not require reversal, as is adequately explained in the special concurrence in that case, which points out that there was no burden on the state to establish, for instance, that the defendant was not insane, but there was a burden on the state to establish beyond a reasonable doubt all ingredients affecting culpability for the murder for which the defendant was on trial including malice. (The due process issue in that case involved the question of who had the burden of showing malice vel non in a murder prosecution.)
Therefore, since I am still of the opinion that this court cannot overrule the Supreme Court, and that Chandle v. State, supra, dealing with accident and State v. McNeill, supra, dealing with entrapment, both of which, and also coercion, are chapter 26-9 defenses, still control. I respectfully dissent. The result of this must be to hold that, after the defendant admits the acts charged by the state which constitute the crime, he has a burden to go forward with evidence to show lack of culpability. I conclude from these latest Supreme Court cases (a) that while it is error to put a reasonable-doubt burden on the defendant, and (b) not error to fail to put any burden on the state, as to these defenses, the defendant after acknowledging his commission of the act has a definite affirmative duty to convince the jury of facts negating its culpability. I also feel that the court may properly so charge, provided that he also explains to the jury the rule of law that if considering all the evidénce, including evidence relating to the affirmative defense urged, they are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt, they must acquit.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Pannell and Judge Webb concur in this, dissent.