Court Opinion

ID: 9591461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:04:30.704161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:38.112149
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
I concur in the results indicated in each of the divisions of the *417majority opinion with the exception of Division 12, relative to presumptions. I dissent to so much of the judgment as effects reversal, and I concur specially as to Division 6 of the opinion.
1. In Division 6, the majority addresses the challenge directed to an underrepresentation of young people in the grand and traverse jury lists. It does so, having accepted the trial court’s factual determination that there is a substantial mathematical disparity between the percentage of young voters on the lists and the percentage of young voters resident in the county, and the further finding .that there are “sufficiently distinct differences in relevant attitudes and beliefs held by the 18 to 29 age group from other adults to warrant the recognition of this group as a significantly identifiable group requiring their representative inclusion on the Grand and Traverse Jury Lists.”
I would reject this challenge, as the majority comes finally to do, but on another ground.
A three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit in Willis v. Zant, 720 F2d 1212 (11th Cir. 1983), expresses the opinion that a similar challenge cannot be rejected as a matter of law, but that whether or not young adults constitute a “cognizable group” under the Sixth Amendment’s standard must be determined as a matter of fact. In Willis, supra, the petitioner contended that the young persons he claims were excluded were “the only South Georgians who were reared and educated in a desegregated society. Thus, the white members of this group could more easily understand and relate to petitioner, a twenty-three year old black man, than could older whites.” 720 F2d at 1217. The holding of that court then followed: “We do not comment on the merits of petitioner’s contention; rather, we vacate the denial of relief on this issue and remand it to the district court for an evidentiary hearing. Petitioner is entitled to a chance to prove his claim; . . .” Id. 1217.
Precisely the same reasoning is urged here by Parks. Hence, it is seen that the substance of the issue deals, not with a distinctive group which in the past has been the target of systematic discrimination, but with matters of attitude only. Stated otherwise, Parks complains that attitudes which he says would be helpful to him are excluded by virtue of the underrepresentation of young people.
The first issue in such an inquiry must be whether or not there is sufficient proof of sufficiently disparate attitudes within the claimed “cognizable group” to sustain Parks’ contention.
The only evidence of a diversity of racial outlook between young and older citizens was the testimony of a sociologist, and, more particularly, the content of a paper which he had written in the year 1977. That paper, in turn, relied upon some Gallup opinion polls, the earliest of which is January 1973, and the latest February 1975. (In his testimony, however, the sociologist indicated that he had reviewed a later Gallup poll — which itself is now five years old.)
*418Such was the evidence upon which the trial judge based his finding of attitude.
I do not suggest here how such chimerical concerns as public attitudes and divergencies therein properly might be proved. I state without hesitation, however, that it is not done with Gallup polls — even when read in open court by a sociologist.
The factual basis for the trial judge’s ruling on this issue being insufficient at law, all of the considerations in the majority’s Division 6 become unnecessary.
2. I dissent to the holding of the majority in Division 12, and to the concomitant reversal.
First, it needs to be stated at the outset that this is not a “presumption” case. The word “presumption” appears in the charge only as follows: (1) as to the presumption of innocence; (2) as to the presumption of the believability of witnesses; and (3) that “no person will be presumed to act with criminal intention . . . .”
Second, the infirmity for which the majority reverses consists of one sentence, appended by the trial judge to a recharge in the language of OCGA § 16-5-1 (b). It is: “Implied malice is an intention to kill which is proved either by the act of killing itself, the surrounding circumstances, or the absence of any provocation.”
Admittedly, the charge would be improved by the omission of this sentence. It can be argued that this sentence — standing alone — could equate intent to kill with the act itself. But I suggest that such a conclusion, in the light of reality, is totally unwarranted.
The majority cites Johnson v. State, supra, to the effect that “we must first determine what construction a reasonable juror might have placed on the contested charge.” 249 Ga. at 622. That standard is set out also, in the case of Francis v. Franklin, _ U. S. _ (No. 83-1590, decided April 29, 1985). “The question, however, is not what the State Supreme Court declares the meaning of the charge to be, but rather what a reasonable juror could have understood the charge as meaning.” Opinion, p. 8.
What could a reasonable juror have understood as to the burden of proof in this case? That is the ultimate issue.
The trial court charged the jury as to the presumption of innocence and as to reasonable doubt. It charged as to the “two theories” aspect of circumstantial evidence. It charged that conviction may not rest solely upon mere suspicion, conjecture, or possibility of guilt. It charged that a crime is a violation of a statute which involves a union of act and intention, and that a person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention, but the jury may find such an intention to exist upon a consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive, and all other facts and circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted.
*419Decided May 17, 1985 —
Rehearing denied June 11, 1985.
Murray F. Bahm, Stephen B. Bright, Robert L. McGlasson II, for appellant.
Robert E. Wilson, District Attorney, Susan Brooks, Assistant District Attorney, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Dennis R. *420Dunn, Senior Attorney, for appellee.
*419I suggest that no reasonable juror could conclude anything other than that the state had the burden of proof to establish each and every element of the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt; that there was no burden upon the accused to establish anything; that intent to kill is an essential element which must be established beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the infelicitous addition of the contested language in no way shifted, nor even lightened, the burden upon the state.
How could a reasonable juror, in this case, fail to understand that the burden of proof as to intention to kill — and as to everything — was squarely upon the state?
In this connection, we need to consider the implications of Francis v. Franklin, supra. First, that case is a “presumption” case, unlike this case.
Second, in Francis, the defendant was convicted of killing another (who was a stranger) when he fired a projectile through a wooden door. His only defense was accident, in that the slamming of the door by the victim caused the accidental discharge of the handgun. “His sole defense was a lack of the requisite intent to kill, claiming that the killing was an accident.” Francis, supra, Opinion, p. 1. The facts in the case of Parks are far removed, indeed, from those in Francis. A reasonable juror in Francis of necessity would be concerned over the sole issue in that case, which was intent to kill. Hence, any address to that issue in the charge would have overriding importance.
In this case, by contrast, Parks admitted to the strangulation, rape, and sodomy of a ten-year-old-girl. (Indeed, no substantive question of intent is raised by the evidence.)
In the face of this evidence, and of the repeated instructions by the trial court that the state must prove intent, I inquire again: how could a reasonable juror fail to understand that intent to kill was an essential element of the offense? (And I inquire further: how could a reasonable juror find that Parks’ admitted strangulation, rape and sodomy were other than intentional — no matter what the charge?)
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Marshall and Justice Smith join in this dissent.