Court Opinion

ID: 9588612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:36:18.29089+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:59.714092
License: Public Domain

Benham, Judge,
concurring specially.
Appellants’ initial enumeration of error is that the trial court erred in failing, sua sponte, to declare a mistrial based upon the assistant district attorney’s closing argument in which he purportedly put appellants’ character into issue. See OCGA § 24-9-20 (b). In his argu*346ment, the assistant D.A. alluded to the fact that one of the victims sold cocaine and dealt in marijuana (the victim had been impeached with his convictions for possession with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana) and noted that one of the victims was “not the finest of individuals” (that victim had earlier been impeached with his conviction for aggravated assault). The assistant D.A. then commented that “birds of a feather flock together.” Appellants, however, did not object to the closing argument until after the jury was charged.
Decided April 4, 1989
Rehearing denied April 17, 1989
Fennessy, Skipper & Nettum, Richard E. Nettum, for appellants.
John R. Parks, District Attorney, R. Rucker Smith, Assistant District Attorney, for appellee.
I agree with the majority that appellants’ failure to make a timely motion for mistrial precludes our review of appellants’ enumerated error. See Chafin v. State, 246 Ga. 709 (11) (273 SE2d 147) (1980); Bennett v. State, 165 Ga. App. 600 (3) (302 SE2d 367) (1983). However, I am unwilling to condone the assistant district attorney’s remarks as “vivid or overblown inference[s].” The remarks, implying that from the company they kept appellants were not the finest of individuals and might have been involved with drugs, had no place in a closing argument.