Court Opinion

ID: 9584164
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:45:07.493415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:06:55.500019
License: Public Domain

Sognier, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I concur fully in the dissenting opinion, and write separately to add to the discussion concerning Division 3.
I find the scope of appellant’s objection below is not determinative of the applicability of Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640 (409 SE2d 649) (1991) and Stephens v. State, 261 Ga. 467, 468-469 (6) (405 SE2d 483) (1991). In both of these cases, the Supreme Court held that the State bears the burden of affirmatively complying with the requisite procedures for admission of evidence of prior criminal transactions, and that when the State fails to meet this burden the conviction must be reversed. In each case, the court’s analysis focused not on whether the appellant’s objection had been precisely framed and preserved at trial, but whether the State had met its obligations so as to justify making an exception to the general rule that such evidence is not admissible. Indeed, in Williams the enumeration of error did not expressly raise the primary ground on which the judgment of conviction was reversed. Instead, the court formulated a procedure to be followed by the prosecution when seeking to introduce similar crimes evidence and then reversed the judgment because of the State’s failure to comply with these requirements. Given this analytical approach employed by the Supreme Court, I can only conclude that the instant judgment must be reversed on the same basis regardless of the scope of appellant’s objection below. Since, as Judge Beasley’s dissent discusses, the State failed to establish — and obtain the trial court’s express finding thereon — either the permissible purpose for which the evidence was proffered, Williams, supra at 642 (2) (b), or sufficient similarity between the prior offense and the charged crime, id. at (2) (b-d), appellant has shown reversible error. Id.; see Stephens, supra.
I am authorized to state that Judge Beasley joins in this dissent.