Court Opinion

ID: 9588626
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:36:31.825225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:37.710187
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Judge.
Robert West seeks acquittal and discharge of his indictments for sale of cocaine on grounds he demanded, but was denied, a speedy trial under OCGA § .17-7-170.
The trial court was correct in denying the motion for acquittal and discharge. OCGA § 17-7-170 provides that following a proper demand for speedy trial, discharge and acquittal shall be granted “[i]f the person is not tried when the demand is made or at the next succeeding regular court term thereafter, provided at both court terms there were juries impaneled and qualified to try him. . . .” OCGA § 17-7-170 (b).
Appellant was indicted in August 1988. He made his demand during that term, but not until October 25, near the end of the term, when there were no juries impaneled to try him and none scheduled, and the criminal court session had been adjourned.
The State clouds the issue by arguing that there must be jurors impaneled “on the day” the demand is made, but § 17-7-170 does not say this. The appellant contends in effect that the statute applies as long as demand was made during a term at which there had been juries impaneled to try him, but this is an unreasonable construction and would serve no purpose, for if there is no jury impaneled after the demand is made, the State has not been given the opportunity to comply with the demand during that term. If the defendant postpones his demand until after the impaneled juries have dispersed and the court session has adjourned, then he himself deprives the State of the opportunity to fulfill its intended obligation.
Appellant in this case criticizes, as “housekeeping problems,” the State’s failure to gather up a jury for him after all had gone home, but the statute does not impose such an obligation upon the State at the defendant’s whim. It only gives him the right to acquittal if “at both court terms there were juries impaneled and qualified to try him,” and this can only mean that there must have been juries impaneled after the demand is made, so as to be able to try him. Otherwise, the statute serves no good purpose.
The provisions of § 17-7-170 (b) were not “triggered” in the first place in this case, where the appellant made his demand when there were no juries impaneled or scheduled to be impaneled in the remainder of the term. See State v. McDonald, 242 Ga. 487, 488 (249 SE2d *118212). The statute applies to outright dereliction by the State in failing to provide a speedy trial where one could have been had; it does not operate to force the State to impanel a jury for one defendant who makes a late demand. This sort of “housekeeping” would turn the courts upon their heads.
Decided October 5, 1989.
H. Samuel Atkins, Jr., for appellant.
Joseph H. Briley, District Attorney, James L. Cline, Jr., Al Martinez, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.

Judgment affirmed.

Deen, P. J., concurs and concurs specially. Benham, J., concurs specially.