Court Opinion

ID: 9567301
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:51:56.796285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:31.571055
License: Public Domain

*416Gunter, Justice,
dissenting. I disagree with the majority decision in this case on two counts.
First, the Attorney General has made a motion in this court to dismiss the appeal as premature. Under our two-step procedure in felony cases in this State, the jury rendered a verdict of guilty of murder and then imposed the death penalty. A motion for new trial was made and granted by the trial judge with respect to the penalty or sentence imposed by the jury. A retrial was ordered for the penalty phase of the case. Under our law the jury must impose the sentence in felony cases. That has not been done in this case, and there is therefore no appealable judgment.
A judgment is appealable if it is final, that is to say, where the cause is no longer pending in the court below. Code Ann., § 6-701 (a) (1).
Code Ann. § 6-802 provides that in a criminal case if the appeal be from a judgment of conviction the notice of appeal must contain "a brief statement of the offense and the punishment prescribed.”
In this felony case a jury has not yet imposed a sentence, and the appeal is, in my opinion, premature. I would grant the motion to dismiss.
Second, I do not agree with all that is said in Division One of the majority opinion. I do not agree with the ruling that knowledge by law enforcement officers of witnesses who can and will be used against an accused on the trial of his case is not imputable to the district attorney. I dissented in Yeomans v. State, 229 Ga. 488 (192 SE2d 362) (1972). Also, I think that the ruling in Evans v. State, 227 Ga. 571, 576, supra, is not a basis for a hard and fast rule as to what is imputed to the district attorney, because in that case the district attorney had disclosed to counsel for *417the accused the names of the newly discovered witnesses more than two weeks before the trial.
In the instant case the name of the witness Beard was not given to counsel for the accused in response to the written demand provided for in Code Ann. § 27-1403. Shortly before arraignment this witness’ name was given to counsel for the accused by the district attorney; counsel for the accused then made a motion for a continuance to investigate the "newly discovered” witness; and the motion for a continuance was denied by the trial court. Arraignment followed, the trial began, and the witness Beard was allowed to testify for the state over the objection of the accused. The record discloses that the witness Beard had been interviewed by law enforcement officers shortly after the commission of the crime and that his name had been in the file along with other witnesses that were used for several months. The district attorney stated in his place that he had no personal knowledge of this witness Beard until shortly before arraignment when he notified appellant’s counsel that the state would use this witness.
It seems to me that permitting the state to use the witness Beard, under the circumstances here related, evades the purpose of Code Ann. § 27-1403, and such evasion militates against a fair trial for the accused.
This Code section enacted in 1966, provides that "no witness shall be permitted to testify for the State whose name does not appear upon the list of witnesses as furnished to the defendant unless the solicitor or prosecuting attorney shall state in his place that the evidence sought to be presented is newly discovered evidence which the State was not aware of at the time of its furnishing the defendant with a list of the witnesses.”
The witness Beard in this case was an eyewitness to the crime. The purpose of the statute is to permit counsel for an accused to investigate witnesses that will be used against the accused on the trial of the case. Under the *418facts contained in the record, I think that the court should have granted a continuance for the purpose of permitting this investigation, or the witness should not have been allowed to testify. In any event, I would not lay down a hard and fast rule that knowledge of witnesses to be used by the state is not imputed to the district attorney.
As the Court of Appeals of Georgia said in Smith v. State, 123 Ga. App. 269, 272 (180 SE2d 556), "every case relying on the Act (Code Ann. § 27-1403) so far has been found to come under an exception thereto.” I think it is time to stop allowing exceptions to the statute and make it an instrument for insuring a fair trial for an accused.
I respectfully dissent.