Court Opinion

ID: 9579922
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:59:55.406276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:53.692505
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
concurring specially.
I disagree with the interpretation of Code Ann. § 26-3001 contained in the Per curiam opinion. In my view, the statute prohibits "any person” from intentionally transmitting or recording in a clandestine manner the private conversation of another person which originates in a private place unless one of the statutory exceptions is met. This is what the plain language of the statute provides and I take it the General Assembly meant what it said in the statute.
Of course, the statute covers persons who are not parties to the conversation, but it does not exclude (as it could have done) the parties to the conversation. The emasculated construction given by the majority amounts to a judicial license to tape private telephone conversations by private persons in private places. To my mind, this chills free speech and encourages a machine age attack on the precious right of privacy which has been sacred in Georgia since, at least, 1905. See Pavesich v. New England Life Ins. Co., 122 Ga. 190 (50 SE 68).
Thus, I would agree with the interpretation given the statute by the Court of Appeals in State v. Mitchell, 140 Ga. App. 23 (230 SE2d 22) (1976), and disapprove its earlier construction of the statute in Cross v. State, 128 Ga. App. 837 (198 SE2d 338) (1973). However, I concur in the judgment of the court in this case because appellant had a right to rely on the Cross case at the time of the incidents here involved and it would be unfair to prosecute appellant based on this court’s disapproval of the interpretation given the statute earlier in Cross.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Nichols *8and Justice Hill concur in this special concurrence.