Court Opinion

ID: 9850448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:57:34.234369+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:37.415781
License: Public Domain

HINES, Justice,
concurring specially.
I write separately to address the analysis in Division 5 leading to the conclusion that the trial court erred in permitting the State to introduce evidence of Harris’s prior misdemeanor convictions. There was no error.
The majority offers an unfounded and overly restrictive reading of Jones v. State, 257 Ga. 753 (363 SE2d 529) (1988), to conclude that the State was authorized to impeach Harris’s testimony only by presenting evidence of her felony convictions or other evidence that she had committed felonies. But the clear import of Division (1) (b) of Jones is that if a defendant testifies in a manner that suggests that the defendant’s criminal record is less serious than it actually is, the State has the right to challenge the accuracy of that testimony. The crux of the analysis must be whether by testifying on direct examination that she had never been convicted of a felony, Harris implied that she had no criminal record. If she did, her testimony was subject to rebuttal by the State by proof of other crimes that Harris committed. Id. at 759 (1) (b).
The inescapable conclusion is that by defense counsel’s carefully circumscribed question on direct and Harris’s truthful answer about the lack of felony convictions, the defense meant to imply that Harris was free of past criminal activity. Certainly, there is little chance that the jury would parse either the question or the response to make a *531distinction between felonious deeds and lesser criminal acts. By its apparent strategy with regard to Harris’s criminal record, the defense itself gave the State its entree to make its inquiry regarding that record.
Decided June 30, 2005.
Martin G. Hilliard, for appellant.
Spencer Lawton, Jr., District Attorney, Ronald M. Adams, Assistant District Attorney, Thurbert E. Baker, Attorney General, Raina J. Nadler, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.