Court Opinion

ID: 9540191
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:13:31.862574+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:41.951665
License: Public Domain

*856Banke, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
The Supreme Court’s holding in Gunn v. State, 227 Ga. 786, 787 (4) (183 SE2d 389) (1971), was based on the common law doctrine, set forth in 22 CJS, Criminal Law, § 27,. that the repeal of a criminal statute without a saving provision or the simultaneous re-enactment of a substantially similar statute evidences a legislative intent to pardon offenses previously committed under the statute which have not yet been prosecuted to final judgment. Although former Code Ann. § 5-9914 was repealed without a saving provision when the Official Code of Georgia Annotated took effect, the circumstances of its repeal tend to indicate that the offense was omitted from the new Code inadvertently and thus without any legislative intent to pardon previously committed offenses.
In passing the new Code, the Legislature specifically declared its intention not to alter existing substantive law, as follows: “The enactment of this Code is intended as a recodification, revision, modernization, and reenactment of the general laws of the State of Georgia which are currently of force and is intended, where possible, to resolve conflicts which exist in the law and to repeal those laws which are obsolete as a result of the passage of time or other causes, which have been declared unconstitutional or invalid, or which have been superseded by the enactment of later laws. Except as otherwise specifically provided by particular provisions of this Code, the enactment of this Code by the General Assembly is not intended to alter the substantive law in existence on the effective date of this Code.” OCGA § 1-1-2. (Emphasis supplied.)
The repeal of former Code Ann. § 5-9914 occurred not as the result of any specific reference to that section in the new Code but pursuant to the general repeal of the entire 1933 Code, as amended, which necessarily accompanied the new Code’s passage. See OCGA § 1-1-10 (a) (1 & 2). In view of the Legislature’s express statement of intention not to change the substantive law “[ejxcept as otherwise specifically provided by particular provisions of [the new] Code,” and its verbatim re-enactment of the language of former Code Ann. § 5-9914 at its next available opportunity after passage of the new Code, I am led inescapably to the conclusion that the Legislature never had any intention of deleting this offense from the criminal law. Consequently, I find no legislative intention to pardon offenses previously committed under the former code section and would order the indictments in this case reinstated.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge McMurray and Presiding Judge Deen join in this dissent.