Court Opinion

ID: 9594850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:33:25.363146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:59.393370
License: Public Domain

Sievers, Judge,
dissenting.
I find that with all due respect to my colleagues, I cannot join in the majority opinion. While the majority says that the determination of whether Curlile’s actions constitute a threat to Fanda “must be made in context,” the majority then fails to recount the most important contextual facts of the case. These omitted facts are that Curlile was a regular customer of a Gas ’N Shop convenience store located on U.S. Highway 30 in Hall County. He went to the store once or twice a day to purchase telephone cards and other items. The store clerk involved in this incident, Fanda, often saw Curlile in the store, but never had any difficulties with him. On August 11, 2000, Curlile purchased a telephone card at the store and then left. Fanda rang up the purchase, but had no conversation with Curlile, and certainly no problem. This leads me to the question: If Curlile was really threatening Fanda with a crime of violence, why?
I know that the State does not have to prove motive, but the evidence reveals behavior which is clearly equivocal: Is it criminal behavior constituting a threat to commit a crime of violence, or is it odd behavior having some other genesis? Thus, it is all the more crucial that we look hard at context for some explanation and understanding of what Curlile was doing. The lack of any reason, past or present, for threatening Fanda means that the inferences which the majority is willing to allow the trial judge to draw do not come so easily to me. And, if the State’s burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Curlile committed this crime is to have any real meaning — as opposed to just words that we recite by rote and habit — then I find I cannot agree that the State adduced sufficient evidence to prove the crime.
The standard for the appellate review of criminal convictions is fully articulated in the majority’s opinion, and I will not repeat it. Needless to say, the standard of review is difficult because it is phrased so that in order to reverse this conviction, we would have to find that the trial judge’s decision was “irrational,” a difficult characterization to reach. Nonetheless, this is not a case of a trial judge choosing one version of the facts over *61another. Here, the facts are wholly undisputed. Those facts do not prove Curlile guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.