Court Opinion

ID: 9623385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:32:19.079898+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:29.071062
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Chief Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur, but not in all that is written in Divisions 2 and 3 of the opinion.
Regarding Division 2, in Mallory v. State, 261 Ga. 625, 630 (5) (409 SE2d 839) (1991), the Georgia Supreme Court made abundantly clear that “in criminal cases, a comment upon a defendant’s silence or failure to come forward is far more prejudicial than probative. . . . [S]uch a comment will not be allowed even where the defendant has not received Miranda warnings and where he takes the stand in his own defense.”
In this case, the district attorney asked Detective Berry: “Now, Detective, when you took Keith Ford into custody did you take any biographical information or make note of his weight or height at that time?” The witness responded: “I read Mr. Ford his Miranda warnings and he refused to give a statement — .” Immediately, defense counsel, the prosecutor, and the court recognized that a violation of the rule had occurred and, because defense counsel objected, the jury was sent out. After discussion, the jury returned and the court gave instructions meant to neutralize the poison, but defendant insisted on a mistrial, which the court denied.
Defendant urges that his case is similar to Gibbs v. State, 217 Ga. App. 614 (458 SE2d 407) (1995), where the court reversed the conviction because of the reference to defendant’s refusal to give a statement. It is distinguishable because the prosecutor in that case elicited the forbidden information, exacerbated the problem by referring to the absence of a statement in another question, and in effect contrasted defendant’s silence with the victim’s testimony-confirming statement to the police; and the court gave no curative instructions. Here there were appropriate instructions, and the district attorney was not one of the culprits. Nor did defendant’s silence constitute a boding presence in the trial, as the court feared there was in Gibbs’ trial.
In both cases, however, the evidence against the defendants was not overwhelming, although it was stronger in Ford’s case. In addition *568to the victim’s identification, the co-defendant’s redacted statement was read to the jury. It named certain boys who were with him but simply referred to defendant as “one of the boys,” a substitute for his name ordered by the court to meet the mandate of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (88 SC 1620, 20 LE2d 476) (1968). The jury could connect this with defendant because it was after the police talked to this co-defendant and other witnesses that they went and arrested defendant. See Walker v. State, 213 Ga. App. 407, 412 (7) (444 SE2d 824) (1994). Defendant had not been present in the stolen car when the police caught up with it.
Based on all of the circumstances, I can agree that the jury’s hearing the detective’s unresponsive answer was harmless in that it did not deprive defendant of a fair trial, of due process. Gibbs, supra at 615, citing Smith v. State, 244 Ga. 814, 815 (262 SE2d 116) (1979).
The detective, however, should be admonished. He had been with the department for five and one-half years and had been on the major felony robbery unit for a year and a half. His answer was patently unresponsive, and in this regard I do not agree with the majority that it was “inadvertent and unresponsive.” He knew or should have known that he was forbidden to refer to defendant’s refusal to make a statement. It should not be necessary to reverse convictions in order to assure that this breach does not occur.
Regarding Division 3, I agree that, if defendant did not waive his presence by being late to court,3 there was error in proceeding without him. I also agree that in this instance it was harmless, but not because it “did not involve him in any way,” the test employed in the majority opinion. The defendant must be present “when the court takes any action materially affecting his case.” (Citations and punctuation omitted.) Collins v. State, 191 Ga. App. 289, 290 (2) (381 SE2d 430) (1989). That is the test. Although Ford was not present when his co-defendant was arrested driving the stolen car the same night the charged crime was committed, those events clearly materially affected defendant because the driver implicated other boys besides the two who were with him as passengers when he was arrested. If the test utilized by the majority were sufficient, Ford would have no right to be present during the questioning of the detective about the events surrounding the chase and arrests at all. These events constituted material portions of the sequence which, when added up, convicted defendant as one of the robbers.
The reason the error, if any, is harmless is because only prelimi*569nary matters were discussed, with respect to what was to be heard and who was to testify, and the detective who obtained a statement from the co-defendant had only begun to describe the circumstances in which he obtained the statement in the youth unit of the police department. He had not begun to describe his conversation with the co-defendant, so Ford was not deprived of hearing about the interview. Any error in this regard was harmless because it “manifestly caused no injury to the accused”; it was not “prejudicial in character.” (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Collins, 191 Ga. App. at 290.
Decided September 21, 1995
Reconsideration denied December 20, 1995
Peters, Townsend, Wilson & Roberts, R. Stephen Roberts, J. M. Raffauf, for appellant.
J. Tom Morgan, District Attorney, Barbara B. Conroy, Desiree L. S. Peagler, Assistant District Attorneys, for appellee.

 Defendant was still absent when the court started the proceeding at 9:17 even though it had been scheduled for 9:00 a.m. When he did appear, no explanation was offered or asked for, so we cannot determine whether he waived his presence by an inexcusable absence. Collins v. State, 200 Ga. App. 71 (1) (406 SE2d 520) (1991).