Court Opinion

ID: 9846913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:50:23.892681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:57.069360
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
A trial court is not free to instruct the jury erroneously on an area of Georgia law simply because no party submitted a request to charge on the topic. Accordingly, while I agree that the jury instruction on similar transaction evidence that was given was not reversible error, I cannot agree with the rationale the majority relies upon to reach that conclusion in Division 2 (e), although I concur in the remainder of the opinion.
Trial courts are responsible for instructing the jury on the applicable law, and the charges given to the jury should be correct and complete.8 The lack of a request to charge on an issue does not excuse the trial court from ensuring that it accurately and completely states Georgia law for all issues on which it instructs the jury.
Here, without a request from either party, the trial court instructed the jury on similar transaction evidence. That charge generally followed the pattern charge, with two additions, but omitted the final paragraph of the pattern charge. Inclusion of the final paragraph from the pattern charge would have helped to remove any possibility of a misleading jury instruction. Nonetheless, the charge that was given, albeit incomplete, adequately covered the legal principles applicable to the use of similar transaction evidence.9 Accordingly, I agree that the trial court’s charge on similar transaction evidence was not reversible error.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein and Justice Hines join in this special concurrence.

 Parker v. State, 270 Ga. 256, 259 (507 SE2d 744) (1998); Griffith v. State, 264 Ga. 326, 327 (444 SE2d 794) (1994).

 See Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640, 642 (409 SE2d 649) (1991) (similar transaction evidence admissible for limited purpose, assuming evidence shows defendant committed a different transaction that is sufficiently similar to indicted offense).