Court Opinion

ID: 9846776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:48:17.09718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:48.961897
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring fully with all that is said in the majority opinion, several observations are appropriate. In this case we are called upon to address evidence and testimony as to facts incredible, impossible, or, inherently improbable.
There are generally two types of “incredible” evidence.
1. Evidence in relationship to natural and physical laws of the universe that is “incredible
(a) Judge Powell in Rome R. & Light Co. v. Keel, 3 Ga. App. 769 (60 SE 468) (1907) said that a litigant may be thrown out of court if he alleges anything in his complaint which contradicts known and undisputed natural and physical laws of the universe and that further the courts may take judicial notice of these physical and natural laws in a case. Examples of natural laws given in that case were momentum, friction and forces of gravity. See also Blount v. Moore, 159 Ga. App. 80 (282 SE2d 720) (1981); Woods v. Andersen, 145 Ga. App. 492, 496 (243 SE2d 748) (1978); Cornett v. Agee, 143 Ga. App. 55 (237 SE2d 522) (1977); Irwin v. Torbert, 204 Ga. 111, 125 (49 SE2d 70) (1948).
(b) Judge Fish in a 3-2 decision, Patton v. State, 117 Ga. 230, 235 (43 SE 533) (1902), went further and announced that . . . “great physical laws of the universe are witnesses in every case, and can not be impeached by the feeble voice of man, even though he be speaking under the sanction of an oath.” Examples given in this case are that water does not run up hill, that in pitch dark you cannot recognize a *300distant object, nor recognize the voice of a person whom you have never heard before, nor could you distinguish between a Winchester and a Martini Rifle.
2. Evidence other than that which deals with natural and physical laws which is also “incredible.” This type of incredible evidence is discussed in the rape case of Peters v. State, 177 Ga. 772 (171 SE 266) (1933) in that the victim in this case testified that the defendant had raped her in his home in the presence of his wife while his children were outside. The victim testified that she did not consent. The defendant was convicted in the trial court but the Supreme Court stated at p. 775 that “[t]he evidence against the accused, if believed, would support the verdict. However, it is of such extraordinary character that it bears on its face the earmark of the unbelievable. That one will commit a rape in the presence of his own wife, herself enceinte, upon her sister-in-law, is so unlikely that under the evidence in this case it was error not to grant a new trial.” The court in this case is discussing a type of “incredible” testimony as distinguished from the other type of incredible evidence which is in relationship and contradicts or supports the natural and physical laws of the universe. See also Merritt v. State, 190 Ga. 81 (8 SE2d 386) (1940). In my opinion, the Supreme Court in the latter two cases cited was dealing with a type of incredible or unbelievable testimony totally-unrelated to natural and physical laws of the universe. Yet, they erroneously cited as their reasons for setting aside the jury verdict that the testimony of the victim was contrary to the great physical laws of the universe citing Patton v. State, supra. They in effect substituted their judgment as to the credibility of the victim’s evidence for that of the jury.
The courts and judges exercise an awesome power when they become scientists in cases identifying what constitutes an undisputed natural and physical law of the universe. Once we identify this type evidence we have the further responsibility of stating whether a litigant in a particular case can or cannot allege anything contrary to, or can or cannot produce evidence contrary to such known and established laws. The courts should not, in my opinion, cite the Patton, supra, and Rome R. & Light Co., supra, rule in determining other type “incredible” evidence cases. The applicability of testimony in other cases wherein incredible testimony not involving physical and natural laws must be distinguished from the other. The former is a mixed type question of fact and law for judges first and then possibly jurors must determine, while the latter is a type of swearing contest of one witness testifying one thing and another witness vice versa, the credibility or incredibility of which should generally always better be left to the *301jury.
The evidence in the case sub judice as to whether a witness could see a pink spot on someone’s lip twenty feet away at night with light illuminating from a burning newspaper at a point close to his face involves partially both categories 1(a) and 1(b) above and is best finally left as a question for the jury. Even in the Patton case, supra, where one witness testified it was pitch dark another witness said the moon was shining “nearly as bright as day,” which should again have been a question for the jury rather than an issue to be decided arbitrarily as done in that case by the court.
“ ‘Weighing the evidence and finding the truth in an obscure or doubtful case is work that can usually be well done, best done, by a jury of the vicinage,’ and ‘what they promulgate by their verdict as the value of the whole, and as the ultimate truth of the matter in controversy, ought to be accepted.’ Smith v. State, 63 Ga. 90.” Booker v. State, 50 Ga. App. 66, 68 (176 SE 917) (1934). The best judge between two experts, or, of all opinion evidence, is by a jury of non-experts. The court, except in clear and convincing cases, must be reluctant and hesitant to take cases away from the jury under 1(a) . and 1(b) as herein outlined. Generally, category 2 is always for the jury.