Court Opinion

ID: 9567443
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:53:54.152234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:00:36.691602
License: Public Domain

Birdsong, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
The majority concedes the inadmissibility of breath analysis test results because the alcosensor device does not prove blood-alcohol content, but says any prejudice caused by the blurting out of this evidence by a State’s witness who well knew it was inadmissible, was cured by the trial court’s “expelling” it from the evidence. With that conclusion in Division 1, we do not necessarily disagree.
Abruptly, however, the majority then turns about-face and espouses the exact opposite evidentiary premise, so as to excuse the trial court’s remark before the jury that defense counsel’s closing argument contending the test did not prove blood-alcohol content was “somewhat misleading,” and that “[y]ou [defense counsel] stated twice it’s not blood-alcohol. The law . . . allows analysis of . . . breath ... to establish blood alcohol content.”
With this statement, the trial court validated the alcosensor breath test as analytic proof of intoxication, and reinserted the police officer’s prejudicial testimony as to the results. And the majority in Division 2 says this statement was correct, “[s]ince [the alcosensor test] by legislative policy [has the law’s approval as an accurate measuring device], OCGA § 40-6-392.”
This statement by the majority is a complete misconstruction of the plain words of the law, and a direct contradiction of its own holding in Division 1. OCGA § 40-6-392 does not approve a breathalyzer “as an accurate measuring device” to prove blood alcohol content. The statute, at paragraph (a) only approves, as admissible at trial, “evidence of the amount of alcohol . . . in a person’s blood at the alleged time, as determined by a chemical analysis of the person’s . . . breath. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
In paragraph (b) of § 40-6-392, it is provided that upon a trial for DUI, “the amount of alcohol in the person’s blood at the time alleged, as shown by a chemical analysis of the person’s . . . breath . . . shall *134give rise to the following presumptions. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
Since the breath test, as conceded by the majority in Division 1, does not prove the amount of alcohol in the person’s blood, it is not admissible under § 40-6-392. But in Division 2, the majority says it is an accurate measuring device for blood alcohol content under § 40-6-392.
Appellant’s entire defense was that he had ingested pizza with beer immediately before being stopped, and “at the time alleged” (id.) was not driving under the influence in violation of the code sections because the alcohol content in his blood was not proved to the presumptive DUI standards of § 40-6-392 (b). Regardless what one may think of this defense, the appellant is entitled to have it. If the impression given by the police officer as to his blood alcohol content by blurting out the .12% results of the breath test was “expelled” by the trial court’s curative instruction, this prejudice was reinjected powerfully when the trial court called “somewhat misleading” the defense position “that [according to the majority’s inference] the breath test . . . did not have the law’s approval as an accurate measuring device” proving blood alcohol content.
When the trial court incorrectly stated, in the jury’s presence that “[t]he law . . . allows analysis of . . . breath ... to establish blood alcohol content,” the denuding of the defense was complete. Enough of the dialogue in closing argument was transcribed to show clearly what it was the defense had argued and what the trial court labelled “misleading.” In finding what it appeared the defense counsel argued and that the trial court’s statements were correct, the majority concedes this much. Despite the majority’s gratuitous remark about the defendant’s failure to substantiate his claim by providing the whole record of closing argument, the one we have before us is more than enough to clearly prove the trial court powerfully resuscitated and exacerbated the prejudice originally caused by the State’s witness blurting out the alcosensor results which he knew were inadmissible.
If the majority, as it does, must make completely antithetical arguments as to two separate errors, and in my opinion incorrectly interpret the statute’s clear meaning, in order to rule both of the errors harmless, then the majority, in disproving itself, has proved the conviction cannot be sustained. The jury, having been incorrectly told by the judge that the appellant’s defense was “misleading,” could not possibly reach a fair verdict.
The appellant should be entitled to a new trial.
I respectfully dissent. I am authorized to state that Presiding Judge Banke, Judge Sognier and Judge Benham join in this dissent.
*135Decided July 15, 1988
Rehearing denied July 29, 1988
Victor C. Hawk, for appellant.
Michael C. Eubanks, Solicitor, H. Scott Allen, Assistant Solicitor, for appellee.