Court Opinion

ID: 9848817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:27:59.4051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:48.162208
License: Public Domain

*674Hines, Justice,
dissenting.
The reversal of Slakman’s murder conviction is unwarranted. The analyses contained in Divisions 2 and 3 of the majority opinion are problematic, but I am also concerned with the determination in Division 4 (a) that it was error for the trial court to permit Slakman’s first wife, Reid, to testify about the physical and verbal abuse she endured at the hand of Slakman. The majority erroneously concludes that the violence, occurring between 1970 and 1974, was too remote in time, and therefore, inadmissible as a matter of law.
In Gilstrap v. State, 261 Ga. 798 (410 SE2d 423) (1991), this Court sanctioned the exclusion of similar transaction evidence on the basis that the event was 31 years in the past. However, subsequently, this Court plainly acknowledged that while the passage of time is certainly a significant factor to consider in assessing whether the conduct in question is admissible as similar transaction evidence, it alone is not determinative. Mullins v. State, 269 Ga. 157, 158 (2) (496 SE2d 252) (1998). Nor should it be, especially in cases involving domestic abuse, which are prone to patterns of conduct. See Sapeu v. State, 222 Ga. App. 509, 510 (4) (474 SE2d 703) (1996).
The focus of the inquiry on admissibility of the evidence is the similarity between the independent act and the crime for which the defendant is being tried in order that the trier of fact may make a reasoned determination whether the independent act is sufficiently similar to the charge being tried so as to be relevant. Hudson v. State, 271 Ga. 477, 479 (2) (521 SE2d 810) (1999). Here, similarity is undeniable. Slakman’s slain wife died from severe trauma complicated by her being manually strangled after she informed Slakman that she was going to divorce him. It is beyond question that ex-wife Reid’s testimony that Slakman attacked and choked her after she told him that she wanted a divorce was highly relevant on both the issue of Slakman’s state of mind and his course of conduct in a marriage gone bad. The trial court did not err in admitting it.
I am authorized to state that Justice Hunstein and Justice Carley join in this dissent.
*675Nations, Toman & Nutter, David C. Nutter, amicus curiae.