Peterson v. State, 66303
| Decision Date | 20 May 1983 |
| Docket Number | No. 66303,66303 |
| Parties | PETERSON v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
George J. Thomas II, Mark O. Shriver IV, Canton, for appellant.
Rafe Banks III, Dist. Atty., Channing Ruskell, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
On December 12, 1981, appellant and a friend, Tony Oliver, were arrested for drag-racing in Woodstock, Georgia. One week later, at about 12:40 on the morning of December 19-20, a dynamite charge was detonated at the rear of the Woodstock City Hall, breaking windows and inflicting other damage amounting to approximately $500. An initial investigation revealed no clues as to who was responsible. About three months later, however, the Woodstock Police Department received a telephone call from an anonymous female implicating appellant, Oliver, and several friends of theirs in the affair. Police were able to determine who the caller was and subsequently to learn that the source of her information was her teenage daughter, whose boyfriend was among the group of high school students and drop-outs whom police later charged with the dynamiting. The daughter testified that on the night of the bombing she had received a number of telephone calls from the boyfriend boasting that he and several named friends, including appellant, were planning to bomb the city hall. In the final call, received at approximately 1:00 a.m., he informed her that the plan had been carried out.
After the suspects were arrested, several of them made statements admitting their own participation in the enterprise and naming appellant Peterson and Oliver as the ring-leaders. Oliver subsequently admitted his involvement and made a written statement and an oral confession (the latter taped by the interrogating officers). He told of an evening of joy-riding, beer-drinking, and pot-smoking leading up to the bombing, and confirmed others' accounts of how the dynamite had been rigged and detonated.
At trial Oliver and two others who had given statements retracted them and stated that they had had no part in the affair. Several friends of Peterson and the others implicated testified at trial that Peterson had been with them or had been seen by them at various times before, during, and after the period of time during which the events culminating in the bombing would have taken place. There were discrepancies in the accounts given by the various alibi witnesses, however, and the prosecutor cross-examined closely in an effort to undermine their credibility.
A Cherokee County jury found appellant guilty of both first-degree arson and criminal possession of explosives. He received a twenty-year sentence on the arson count, and a six-year sentence for criminal possession, the latter to be served on probation at the completion of the other sentence. He was also ordered to make restitution. On appeal he enumerates as error the following: (1) the trial court's permitting the prosecution to impeach its own witnesses on prior inconsistent statements, allegedly without laying a proper foundation; (2) an alleged shifting of the burden of proof resulting from the prosecution's cross-examination of appellant's alibi witnesses; (3) the court's overruling of appellant's motion for a mistrial based on the cross-examination of the alibi witnesses; and (4) allegedly improper jury instructions concerning alibi. Held:
1. Under OCGA § 24-9-83 (Code Ann. § 38-1803) The statute goes on to characterize the above procedure as "lay[ing] this foundation." Our scrutiny of the record in the instant case indicates that the requirements of the statute were fulfilled. With a possible single exception, when the court sustained a defense objection pending the laying of a proper foundation whereupon the prosecution immediately proceeded to fill out the foundation, the prosecuting attorney in every instance alluded to "the time, place, person, and circumstances attending the former statements" and showed the witness the statement as he read appropriate excerpts.
As to the state's impeachment of its own witnesses, the Supreme Court of Georgia held in Wisdom v. State, 234 Ga. 650, 217 S.E.2d 244 (1975), that to...
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Davis v. State, 38
...Cal.Rptr. 502 (1987). In fact, some of those courts hold that such impeachment is always appropriate. See e.g., Peterson v. State, 166 Ga.App. 719, 305 S.E.2d 447, 449 (1983) (the witness's failure to inform the authorities of facts which would have tended to absolve his roommate of any cri......
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State v. Haga
...Gizzarelli, 651 A.2d 724, 725 (R.I.1994) (per curiam). Other cases have also validated the practice. See, e.g., Peterson v. State, 166 Ga.App. 719, 305 S.E.2d 447, 449 (1983); Williams v. State, 99 Md.App. 711, 639 A.2d 180, 184 (1994), aff'd, 344 Md. 358, 686 A.2d 1096 (1996); People v. Ph......
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Pryor v. State
...679 (1988). Moreover, it is no longer necessary to show surprise in order for a party to impeach its own witness. Peterson v. State, 166 Ga.App. 719(1), 305 S.E.2d 447 (1983). "If, at the time of the questioning, a party has knowledge of a prior statement by one of his witnesses which contr......
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Oliver v. State, 66754
...63 (Code Ann. § 26-1404). A fuller exposition of the facts is set out in our opinion in the case of a co-participant, Peterson v. State, 166 Ga.App. 719, 305 S.E.2d 447. 1. Error is enumerated because the state was permitted to impeach its own witnesses, two co-participants in the offenses,......