Court Opinion

ID: 9855719
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:29:45.426326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:36:27.519852
License: Public Domain

Eldridge, Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur in the judgment in this case. The State clearly twisted the reasoning of an entrapment case, Zinn v. State, 134 Ga. App. 51, 52 (2) (213 SE2d 156) (1975), out of the frame in order to submit a charge that permits a jury to consider a 16-year-old prior bad act for a defendant’s “predisposition to commit the crime.” I suspect this is so because evidence of Carr’s intent to commit a theft is lacking in this burglary case. That dishes were disturbed in the mobile home, as opposed to the electronic devices therein, appears to militate against theft as a motive for entry. Thus, the improper charge cannot be considered harmless, as the prior act proved the requisite intent more than any evidence of the instant offense.
I write because “propensity” can be a sufficient basis for the admission of a similar transaction. For example, the propensity to use a firearm has been held to be an appropriate purpose for such admission.20 The propensity to initiate an encounter without a woman’s consent may also be established through prior bad acts.21 As may the propensity for initiating and continuing unprovoked violent encounters.22 “Propensity” is not a forbidden concept when establishing the admissibility of a similar transaction when it goes to show conduct and/or intent with regard to the commission of the indicted offense. Accordingly, I cannot agree with the majority that the “primary aim of this rule [admissibility showing] is to avoid the forbidden inference of propensity.”23 The evil to be avoided is, as in this case, admission of a similar transaction simply to demonstrate a predisposition to commit an offense that the defendant committed in the past, i.e., he did it before, so he did it this time as well. Because the trial court’s charge authorized just such conclusion and the evidence of intent to commit a theft was weak, I cannot say it is highly probable that the complained-of charge did not affect the verdict. Consequently, I concur in the judgment of reversal of this criminal conviction.
*122Kenneth B. Hodges III, District Attorney, Jennifer Johnson-Green, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.

 Anderson v. State, 236 Ga. App. 679, 681-682 (613 SE2d 235) (1999); Shiver v. State, 235 Ga. App. 358, 359 (509 SE2d 658) (1998).

 Goodroe v. State, 238 Ga. App. 66, 68 (518 SE2d 139) (1999).

 Davis v. State, 244 Ga. App. 708, 712 (536 SE2d 596) (2000).

 Citing Smith v. State, 232 Ga. App. 290, 291 (501 SE2d 523) (1998).