Court Opinion

ID: 9609517
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:28:09.053328+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:50.942305
License: Public Domain

Cooper, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent as to Division 2 of the majority opinion since I believe the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion for new trial based on newly discovered evidence. The majority holds that Bonds’ testimony does not meet the requirements for granting a new trial because it goes only to impeaching the victim’s trial testimony. I disagree based on this court’s recent decision in Humphrey v. State, 207 Ga. App. 472 (428 SE2d 362) (1993). In Humphrey, we held that the defendant’s motion for new trial should have been granted based on the newly discovered testimony of the victim’s previously unknown roommate that the victim had told the roommate that she had consented to sexual intercourse with the defendant but had changed her mind in the midst of it. We found this evidence admissible not merely to impeach the victim’s credibility but as substantive evidence tending to establish there had been no rape. Id. at 475. We determined that the roommate’s testimony was “ ‘not cumulative, even though it was substantially the same as the defendant’s own testimony, because it provided support for the defendant’s theory, support which otherwise was completely lacking in the case.’ [Cits.]” Id. As to whether the evidence was so material as to likely produce a different verdict, we held that the trial court, in refusing to grant the new trial motion, “ha[d] seemingly passed upon the credibility of the roommate and ha[d] said, in effect, that a jury could not believe her as a matter of law.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Id.
Bonds testified that the victim told her the following: she took the defendant to a wooded area and had sex with him, she told him not to “come inside of her because she did not want [any] more [children],” he ejaculated in her anyway and, after they had sex, he gave her $20 to which she responded “this is all you’re going to give me after what I gave you?” Bonds also testified that the victim said that she fabricated the rape charge because she knew the defendant was not from there and knew no one in the area. Bonds testified to the same effect at the hearing on the motion for new trial.
Here, as in Humphrey, the testimony of Bonds, the later discovered witness, was admissible not merely to impeach the testimony of the victim but as substantive evidence “affirmatively supporting] the defense claim of consent and fabrication of rape.” Id. Bonds’ testimony as to why the victim said she fabricated the rape charge was not *745previously testified to by any witness. Defendant alone testified that the victim told him not to ejaculate in her, became angry when he had done so, and became more angry when he only paid her $20. While Bonds’ testimony was similar to defendant’s testimony in this regard, as in Humphrey, her testimony was not cumulative because it provided support for the defendant’s theory of consent and fabrication which was otherwise lacking. Id.; see also Lee v. State, 146 Ga. App. 189 (3) (245 SE2d 878) (1978); Banks v. State, 235 Ga. 121 (218 SE2d 851) (1975).
Decided March 18, 1994
Reconsideration denied April 1, 1994
H. Bradford Morris, Jr., for appellant.
Lydia Sartain, District Attorney, Lee Darragh, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Finally, with respect to whether the submitted testimony was so material as to probably produce a different verdict, I conclude the jury may well have believed defendant’s version of the events if it had Bonds’ testimony concerning the victim’s subsequent admissions before it. However, as in Humphrey, the trial court has seemingly passed on Bonds’ credibility and said, in effect, that no jury could believe her. See 207 Ga. App. at 475. Because I find the instant case analogous to the situation in Humphrey and do not believe Bonds’ testimony went only to impeaching the victim’s testimony, I would hold that the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant’s motion for new trial.
I concur in the remainder of the opinion.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Pope joins in this opinion.