Court Opinion

ID: 9573544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:56:38.900821+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:41:35.047938
License: Public Domain

Hunt, Justice,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority that the state can never satisfy its burden of disproving the defendant’s prima facie case of entrapment by impeaching. the defendant, but is required to go further and to contradict the defendant’s testimony. Clearly, there are instances in which the defendant’s testimony may be impeached to the extent that the jury would be authorized to disbelieve it entirely, in which event no further evidence by the state would be necessary in order to prevail against a claim of entrapment. Nonetheless, in this case, the state did present other evidence, set out at length in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, contradicting the defendant’s testimony. I agree with Judge Beasley’s opinion, concurred in by Judge Deen and Judge Pope, that this evidence was sufficient to authorize the trial court to submit the issue of entrapment to the jury and, therefore, I respectfully dissent.
The reversal of this case based upon the majority’s determination that the evidence of entrapment was insufficient confirms beyond doubt that certiorari was improvidently granted. Georgia Supreme Court Rule 30 (1). As pointed out by Justice Hall in Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling v. Jones, 236 Ga. 448, 451 (224 SE2d 25) (1976) (Justice Hall, dissenting), there has never been any disagreement among the trial court, Court of Appeals, this court, or the parties in litigation over any principle of law in this case, and the only purpose for this court’s review is to consider whether the Court of Appeals properly *379construed the facts.
Decided June 27, 1991.
The Garland Firm, Edward T. M. Garland, Donald F. Samuel, for appellant.
Thomas J. Charron, District Attorney, W. Thomas Weathers III, Debra H. Bernes, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.
Review by certiorari “should be basically for the benefit of the public, to reconcile different holdings of the panel court and to declare the law on matters of gravity and public policy.” Id. at 453. The routine grant of certiorari in evidentiary cases provides, in effect, a double appeal, which is undesirable for a number of reasons and should be avoided.1
I am authorized to state that Justice Weltner joins this dissent.

 Nowhere is this more apparent than in the grant of certiorari in “excessive verdict” cases. All too frequently this court has, by a 4-3 vote, reversed a split decision of the Court of Appeals on the issue of excessiveness, a result leading essentially nowhere.
Public confidence in the courts is undermined by the spectacle of one appellate court reversing another, particularly when such reversals are by a divided court and the final decision may represent the opinion of [less than a majority] of the judges who passed upon the case.
Id. at 454.