Court Opinion

ID: 9577768
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:37:55.367234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:14.815629
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
dissenting.
Dickey maintains that the custodial statement testified to at trial by the investigator was more extensive, detailed, significantly different, and far more inculpatory than the “summary” so as to violate OCGA § 17-7-210. In that it must be taken as having contributed to the jury’s verdicts to his detriment, the state not having shown it was harmless, he argues reversal is required.
The majority agrees that the state did not fulfill its statutory responsibility here, in that the defendant was not provided all relevant and material portions of the custodial statement utilized by the state. The state itself concedes that the statement admitted at trial was more detailed than the summary given to defendant prior to trial but contends that the summary put Dickey on notice that his statement proved that his purpose in going to Sams’ house was to “take everyone down,” i.e., a “clear reference” to the pair’s intention to commit armed robbery. Even if we agree solely for the sake of argument that the street parlance “take everyone down” clearly notified Dickey that the state was going to use that part of the custodial statement to prove that the purpose of the pair’s going to Sams’ home was the intention to commit armed robbery, this would not absolve the state from providing Dickey with all relevant and material portions of his statement upon which the state might rely to Dickey’s disadvantage. See White v. State, 253 Ga. 106, 109 (2) (317 SE2d 196) (1984). While the investigator’s testimony about the statement in question certainly encompassed the substance of the summary, it went well beyond it by providing, among other things, a material element of the charged armed robbery, that is, the “use of an offensive weapon.” OCGA § 16-8-41 (a). What was revealed did not comply with OCGA § 17-7-210.
According to Wallin v. State, 248 Ga. 29, 31(5)-32 (279 SE2d 687) (1981), the next inquiry is whether the admission of the statement at trial was harmful.
Although there was other substantial evidence at trial of Dickey’s guilt, I am unable to say with reasonable certainty that no harm resulted from the state’s unexplained failure to obey the straightforward statutory requirement of disclosure. Reed v. State, 163 Ga. App. 364, 365 (2) (295 SE2d 108) (1982). To rule otherwise would be to fail to recognize the impact of a criminal defendant’s. own admissions upon the jury. It may very well make the difference to a juror even where, in our view, the evidence absent the statement is overwhelming. Moreover, retreat to a position of “harmless error” based on nearly conclusive other evidence would allow the state to skimp to a skeleton on the divulgence mandated by the legislature, deprive the *387defendant of information he is entitled to, and secure a conviction with the added evidence as insurance to persuade, however immeasurably, the factfinder. Such would render the requirement empty and meaningless in at least some cases, and we would have to divine in which cases it made a difference for the jury.
Decided June 17, 1986.
William T. Hankins III, Robert G. Rubin, for appellant.
Robert E. Wilson, District Attorney, Barbara Conroy, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
Exclusion is mandated by the legislature. This sanction against the state is expressly provided by the statute and is couched in words that compel non-introduction of the fuller statement into the trial. This is not a judicially-created exclusionary rule. Thus the courts should not allow the avoidance of the statute’s clear directives by a liberal application of the judicially-conceived “harmless error” rule. The majority recognizes that the statute was violated twice, first by the state in failing to provide the entire statement and then by the trial court in not excluding the statement. Yet the dual non-compliance is excused by the conclusion that it did not affect the outcome.
I believe the trial court erred in not granting the defendant a new trial because of the admission into evidence of a statement concerning which the state contravened OCGA § 17-7-210. For “[t]he courts may grant new trials in all cases when any material evidence may be illegally admitted to or illegally withheld from the jury over the objection of the movant.” OCGA § 5-5-22. Upon a retrial the custodial statement in question would be usable if the statute has then been complied with; otherwise not. Reed v. State, supra at 365 (2).
I am authorized to state that Judge Benham joins in this dissent.