Court Opinion

ID: 9561642
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:13:31.420081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:05.503173
License: Public Domain

Pope, Judge,
concurring specially.
The record shows the trial court’s dismissal of defendant’s motion for speedy trial was based on the assumption that an announcement of ready for trial is a condition precedent to reliance upon defendant’s demand for a speedy trial. A defendant demanding a speedy trial in a capital case, pursuant to OCGA § 17-7-171, is required to announce ready when the case is called for trial. However, such a requirement is not imposed by the language of OCGA § 17-7-170, the statute governing a demand for a speedy trial in a non-capital case.
Here, the defendant was not ready for trial but requested a postponement for serving subpoenas for certain evidence. As the majority opinion notes, if defendant’s request had necessarily required the case to be tried outside the period of her demand for speedy trial, then her request would constitute a waiver of the demand. However, a request for or consent to postponement to a term within the period of the demand for speedy trial does not constitute a waiver of the demand. See Walker v. State, 89 Ga. 482 (15 SE 553) (1892); Adams v. State, 129 Ga. App. 839 (201 SE2d 649) (1973). “Only if [defendant] had agreed to postponement to a time outside the term of the demand would [defendant] be held to have waived the demand.” Adams at 842. The record shows that four additional juries were impaneled after the two-week period of postponement requested by the defendant but before the expiration of the term following the one in which she was indicted. Therefore, defendant could have been tried within the term and her request for postponement did not necessarily require the case to be tried after the expiration of the term.
*642Decided March 8, 1989.
Laura Ciprotti, pro se.
Thomas J. Charron, District Attorney, Nancy I. Jordan, Debra H. Bernes, Thomas A. Cole, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.