Posey v. State, A96A1400
| Decision Date | 09 July 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. A96A1400,A96A1400 |
| Citation | 222 Ga.App. 405,474 S.E.2d 206 |
| Parties | POSEY v. The STATE. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Krontz & Bowen, Kenneth W. Krontz, Lithia Springs, for appellant.
Anthony M. Posey, pro se.
Peter J. Skandalakis, Dist. Atty., Dennis T. Blackmon, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Anthony Merit Posey was tried on charges of rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment and two counts of aggravated assault involving his former girl friend. He appeals from his conviction of false imprisonment and one count of aggravated assault.
1. Posey contends that the trial court erred in allowing the state to introduce evidence of a previous aggravated assault conviction involving another former girl friend as a similar transaction. Mitchell v. State, 265 Ga. 71, 72(2), 453 S.E.2d 731 (1995). The record indicates that before the trial court allowed the state to introduce evidence regarding the prior offenses, it held a pretrial hearing in accordance with Uniform Superior Court Rule 31.3(B). At the hearing, the state introduced a certified copy of Posey's guilty plea to charges of aggravated assault and criminal trespass in the earlier case. In the previous incident, Posey went to an apartment he had formerly shared with the victim, armed with a knife, and attempted to force her to leave with him. The trial court concluded that the previous incident was admissible in connection to the aggravated assault charges in this case and instructed the jury to consider the evidence only as it may illustrate the mental state, identity or intent of Posey and for no other purpose. The court further charged the jury that it could consider the evidence in that light only with regard to those particular counts of the indictment. See Ramirez v. State, 217 Ga.App. 120, 123(2), 456 S.E.2d 657 (1995).
The purpose for the introduction of the evidence was to show Posey's course of conduct in dealing with deteriorating relationships with women, thus satisfying the first prong of the requirements of Williams v. State, supra. The introduction of the guilty plea identifying Posey as the perpetrator in the first offense obviates any further proof regarding identity. Finally, the trial court did not err in concluding that there was sufficient similarity between the prior offenses and the crimes charged in this case such that the proof of the former tended to prove the latter. See Parker v. State, 220 Ga.App. 303, 305(4), 469 S.E.2d 410 (1996). Interestingly, Posey testified at trial that he was trying to rescue the first victim from an unhealthy environment where drugs were present. In this case the incident followed Posey's accusation that the victim had smoked marijuana. All three prongs of the Williams v. State, supra, inquiry having been satisfied, we find no error in the admission of the similar transaction evidence in this case.
2. The trial court's decision to allow a witness to testify whose name appeared on the list of witnesses for the similar transactions hearing, but not on the original list of witnesses for trial, was not error. ...
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