Sanders v. State

• Decision Date: 21 April 1982
• Docket Number: No. 63454,63454
• Citation: 162 Ga.App. 175,290 S.E.2d 516
• Parties: SANDERS v. The STATE.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

Page 516

290 S.E.2d 516

162 Ga.App. 175

SANDERS v. The STATE.

No. 63454.

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

April 21, 1982.

Edward Lang, Decatur, for appellant.

Robert Wilson, Dist. Atty., Susan Brooks, Asst. Dist. Atty., Decatur, for appellee.

McMURRAY, Presiding Judge.

Defendant was indicted, tried and convicted of the offense of motor vehicle theft in two counts, the first offense occurring May 1, 1978, and the second on July 12, 1978, both automobiles allegedly stolen being the property of the same automobile dealer with whom this defendant was connected in some capacity. Defendant was sentenced to serve a term of seven years on each count to run consecutively. A motion for new trial was thereafter filed, amended and denied. The defendant appeals, the same being an out of time appeal ordered by the direction of a habeas corpus court based upon defendant's contentions that he was afforded ineffective assistance of counsel during the appellate process as he had instructed his retained counsel to appeal his case which counsel failed to do. Held :

The sole enumeration of error is that "[t]he trial court erred in charging the jury on a request to recharge that they would be required to deliberate (or to remain in the jury room) until they reached a verdict." The substance of the events surrounding this contended error apparently concerned a number of questions submitted by the jury inquiring certain things of the trial court. At that time (11:00 a. m. of the day of the trial) the court stated: "Ladies and gentlemen, you've sent a number of questions out inquiring of the Court certain things. I want to explain to you why in my opinion they have 12 people on the jury. Nobody's ever been able to figure it out. The reason they have 12 people on a jury is so that 12 of you might collectively remember more than one might or two or three or four or five. And the reason that this Court doesn't go back through the evidence and give it to you again is because of that reason. There's 12 of you there and all of you should remember if you were listening what the evidence was and I don't see any need in a one-day trial or a half a day trial to go back through the evidence and reiterate the evidence ... There is no such thing as a perfect case. You could go back in your jury room and figure out a thousand questions to send me that will run through the 12 of your minds but this was a simple case and if you can't remember the evidence, I'm not going to help you any further with it. There are 12 of you and you should go back in there and sit down and talk among yourselves and determine what the evidence is. I'm not going to give you any other questions. It's sort of like a puzzle. If you can't figure the puzzle out, you'll just have to stay in there until you do. That's just the way it is. So, the 12 of you collectively should remember what the evidence was in a short...