Court Opinion

ID: 9584836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:53:10.956302+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:43.193987
License: Public Domain

Carley, Justice,
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority’s affirmance of appellant’s life sentence. However, I write separately so as to explicate why, in my opinion, the Georgia Constitution provides this court with no independent authority to order a remand for a hearing wherein the prosecutor must defend the decision to seek the imposition of that sentence against appellant.
It is appellant’s contention that OCGA § 16-13-30 (d) is violative of the equal protection clause of the Georgia Constitution, Art. I, Sec. I, Par. II, because it discriminates against him as an African-American criminal defendant. It is certainly clear that this court may interpret the equal protection clause of our state constitution as affording greater rights to our citizens than does the federal equal protection clause as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. Grissom v. Gleason, 262 Ga. 374, 376 (2), fn. 1 (418 SE2d 27) (1992). However, there is no dispute that the right of this state’s citizens to be free from the racially discriminatory application of statutes is clearly guaranteed by our state constitution as well as by the Constitution of the United States. Therefore, in this case, we must decide whether appellant has shown that this separate state constitutional right has been violated by the imposition of a sentence under OCGA § 16-13-30 (d). When assessing equal protection challenges, this court has consistently applied the analysis established by the Supreme Court of the United States in making this determination. Grissom v. Gleason, supra at 375 (2). See also Barge-Wagener Constr. Co. v. Morales, 263 Ga. 190, 193 (2) (429 SE2d 671) (1993); Ambles v. State, 259 Ga. 406, 407 (2) (383 SE2d 555) (1989). Under that analysis, our focus must be upon whether appellant has shown that “the deci-sionmaker in his case acted with discriminatory purpose. McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 292 (107 SC 1756, 95 LE2d 262) (1987).” (Emphasis in original.) Cain v. State, 262 Ga. 598, 599 (2) (422 SE2d 535) (1992).
The defendant in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (106 SC 1712, 90 LE2d 69) (1986) made a prima facie showing that racial discrimination may have been a factor in the jury selection in his case and, under those circumstances, the Supreme Court of the United States *361held that it was incumbent upon the prosecutor to rebut that showing. In McCleskey, however, the Supreme Court of the United States specifically rejected the proposition that a prima facie case of racial discrimination in the implementation of a sentencing statute could be shown by mere reliance upon statistics compiled from other cases and held that, under those circumstances, the prosecutor had no burden to justify his sentencing decision. The refusal of the Supreme Court of the United States
to require that the prosecutor provide an explanation for his decisions in [McCleskey] is completely consistent with [that] Court’s longstanding precedents that hold that a prosecutor need not explain his decisions unless the criminal defendant presents a prima facie case of unconstitutional conduct with respect to his case. See, e.g., Batson v. Kentucky, supra
(Emphasis supplied.) McCleskey v. Kemp, supra at 296, fn. 18.
Accordingly, while appellant has an unchallenged right to be sentenced for his crime without regard to his race, the holding in Gris-som compels us to apply the analysis of McCleskey in determining the viability of his claim that the sentence imposed upon him pursuant to OCGA § 16-13-30 (d) violates the equal protection clause of our state constitution. We cannot simply ignore the mandate of Grissom and conclude that this court is authorized to extend the remedial mandate of Batson to a defendant who has presented absolutely no evidence of any purposeful racial discrimination in his case. By so doing, we would sub silentio revive “a new equal protection analysis” of Art. I, Sec. I, Par. II of the Georgia Constitution which was specifically rejected in Grissom, supra at 376 (2). I adhere to Grissom and concur in the affirmance of appellant’s sentence because he has not shown that purposeful racial discrimination was a factor therein.