Court Opinion

ID: 9598778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:11:40.985457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:42.426949
License: Public Domain

Carley, Justice,
concurring specially.
In Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808 (111 SC 2597, 2609, 115 LE2d 720) (1991), the Supreme Court of the United States, overruling its prior cases, held that
[a] State may legitimately conclude that evidence about the victim and about the impact of the murder on the victim’s family is relevant to the jury’s decision as to whether or not the death penalty should be imposed. There is no reason to treat such evidence differently than other relevant evidence is treated.
In so holding, the Supreme Court recognized the inherent potential for injustice created by the preclusion of victim impact evidence.
[W]hile virtually no limits are placed on the relevant mitigating evidence a capital defendant may introduce concerning his own circumstances, the State is barred from either offering “a glimpse of the life” which a defendant “chose to extinguish,” [cit.], or demonstrating the loss to the victim’s family and to society which have resulted from the defendant’s [act of] homicide.
Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2607.
After Payne was decided, the General Assembly of Georgia amended OCGA § 17-10-1.2 so as to authorize the admission of victim impact evidence in capital cases. It is the limited duty of this court now to construe OCGA § 17-10-1.2 in accordance with the legislative intent which prompted its amendment. I agree with the major*410ity’s ultimate conclusion that OCGA § 17-10-1.2 is constitutional under our state constitution. I do not agree, however, with the premise upon which the majority bases its ultimate conclusion. The fundamental error which I perceive in the majority’s analysis is evidenced by footnote 3 of its opinion. Therein, the majority rejects the underlying rationale of Payne as a basis for construing OCGA § 17-10-1.2 and instead predicates its statutory construction exclusively upon former “long-standing Georgia law” and upon former decisions of this court explicating a “rationale for admitting victim impact evidence in the sentencing phase of a death penalty prosecution.”
Notwithstanding any former provisions or rationales, the Supreme Court of the United States has now removed a constitutional impediment to the admission of victim impact evidence and an effort to change our law has since been undertaken through our legislature’s amendment of OCGA § 17-10-1.2. It is our responsibility to give effect to that change in accordance with applicable rules of statutory construction.
In my opinion, it was with the clear intent “ ‘to keep the balance true’ ” that our legislature amended OCGA § 17-10-1.2 and authorized the admission of victim impact evidence in capital cases in this state. Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2609. Accordingly, it is with that intent, not in accordance with any former provisions and rationales, that this court must now construe OCGA § 17-10-1.2. I submit that the majority opinion fails to give full effect to that legislative intent and, for that reason, I concur specially.
OCGA § 17-10-1.2 must certainly be construed in connection with Art. I, Sec. I, Par. I of the Ga. Const, of 1983, which provides: “No person shall be deprived of life . .. except by due process of law.” However, nothing in OCGA § 17-10-1.2 prohibits the defendant who has been found guilty of murder from introducing evidence in mitigation of his sentence. The focus of victim impact evidence is not upon the convicted murderer, but upon the victim himself, his family and society. The due process clause of neither the federal nor our Georgia Constitution renders inadmissible evidence which is otherwise relevant as
offering “a glimpse of the life” which a defendant “chose to extinguish,” [cit.], or demonstrating the loss to the victim’s family and to society which have resulted from the defendant’s [act of] homicide.
Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2607. Indeed, the very purpose of victim impact evidence is to counteract that very broad range of mitigating evidence which the defendánt is authorized to introduce under the due process clause. “ ‘[J]ustice, though due to the accused, is due *411to the accuser also. The concept of fairness must not be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep the balance true.’ ” Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2609. To counteract that broad range of mitigating evidence, a state, through its legislature,
may properly conclude that for the jury to assess meaningfully the defendant’s moral culpability and blameworthiness, it should have before it at the sentencing phase evidence of the specific harm caused by the defendant. “[T]he State has a legitimate interest in counteracting the mitigating evidence which the defendant is entitled to put in, by reminding the sentencer that just as the murderer should be considered as an individual, so too the victim is an individual whose death represents a unique loss to society and in particular to his family.” [Cit.]
(Emphasis supplied.) Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2608.
Thus, it is the “unique loss” caused by a defendant’s act of murder which our legislature has determined to be a relevant sentencing factor. If evidence relates to the “unique loss” resulting from the murder of the victim, then that evidence does not relate to a constitutionally impermissible factor under the due process clause and its admission would not render a trial fundamentally unfair. Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2608.
“[I]t is an affront to the civilized members of the human race to say that at sentencing in a capital case, a parade of witnesses may praise the background, character and good deeds of [the] [defendant. . . , without limitation as to relevancy, but nothing may be said that bears upon the character of, or the harm imposed, upon [the] victims.” [Cit.]
Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2609.
OCGA § 17-10-1.2 must also be construed in connection with Art. I, Sec. I, Par. XXV of the Ga. Const, of 1983, which provides: “The social status of a citizen shall never be the subject of legislation.” However, the social status of a citizen is certainly not the “subject” of OCGA § 17-10-1.2. To the contrary, the only “subject” of that statute is the “uniqueness” of any and all murder victims regardless of their social status.
[V]ictim impact evidence is not offered to encourage comparative judgments of this kind — for instance, that the killer of a hardworking devoted parent deserves the death penalty, but that the murderer of a reprobate does not. It is designed to show instead each victim’s “uniqueness as an individual *412human being,” whatever the jury might think the loss to the community resulting from his death might be. The facts of [South Carolina v.] Gathers[, 490 U. S. 805 (109 SC 2207, 104 LE2d 876) (1989)] are an excellent illustration of this: the evidence showed that the victim was an out of work, mentally handicapped individual, perhaps not, in the eyes of most, a significant contributor to society, but nonetheless a murdered human being.
(Emphasis in original.) Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2607.
Thus, OCGA § 17-10-1.2 does not purport to authorize disparate sentencing treatment of murderers based upon the social status of their victims. It purports only to authorize equal evidentiary treatment for murder victims notwithstanding their social status. To that end, OCGA § 17-10-1.2 authorizes the State to offer evidence of “ ‘a glimpse of the life’ which a defendant ‘chose to extinguish,’ [cit.], or . . . the loss to the victim’s family and to society which have resulted from the defendant’s [act of] homicide.” Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2607. “ ‘[A] glimpse of the life’ which a defendant ‘chose to extinguish’ ” certainly may have occasion to touch upon the victim’s wealth, his race or ethnicity, his class, his religion, his educational background or any number of other factors which made him a “unique” individual. A construction of OCGA § 17-10-1.2 as imposing a blanket preclusion on the admission of such evidence as would afford the jury “ ‘[a] glimpse of the life’ ” of the “unique” individual who was murdered, has the effect of turning
the victim into a “faceless stranger at the penalty phase of a capital trial,” [cit.] . . . [and] deprives the State of the full moral force of its evidence and may prevent the jury from having before it all the information necessary to determine the proper punishment for a first-degree murder.
Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2608.
Accordingly, our state constitution does not preclude the admission of such evidence under OCGA § 17-10-1.2. That different juries may return different sentences for different defendants who have murdered different victims is no reason to construe OCGA § 17-10-1.2 so as to preclude any jury from hearing all the relevant evidence regarding the actual sentence to be imposed upon a specific defendant for the murder of a unique individual.
“[T]he rules of evidence generally extant at the federal and state levels anticipate that relevant, unprivileged evidence should be admitted and its weight left to the factfinder, who would have the benefit of cross examination and contrary ev*413idence by the opposing party.” [Cit.]
Payne v. Tennessee, 111 SC at 2607.
The function of this court is not to rewrite legislation, but to construe that legislation in conformity with the legislative intent with which it was enacted. Accordingly, while I agree that OCGA § 17-10-1.2 is not unconstitutional, I cannot concur in the majority’s rewriting of that statute so as to thwart the legislative intent, which was to authorize the admission of victim impact evidence in accordance with the broad mandate of the decision of the Supreme Court in Payne v. Tennessee.