Fielding v. State
Fielding v. State
Opinion of the Court
The State is seeking imposition of the death penalty against Rob
The trial court, relying upon Sabel v. State, 248 Ga. 10, 18 (282 SE2d 61) (1981), issued an order requiring Fielding to have the opinions of all experts whom he intends to call at trial reduced to writing and to supply those opinions to the State at least ten days prior to trial. For the reasons set forth in our opinion in Johnson v. State, 265 Ga. 833 (463 SE2d 123) (1995), we hold that the trial court’s order is overbroad and in clear violation of the rule articulated in Rower. Because the trial court’s order is in error to the extent that it requires the defense to reduce unwritten opinions to writing and to produce written reports which it does not intend to introduce at trial, we remand the order to the trial court with direction to modify the order to comport with Rower.
Judgment reversed and remanded.
Fielding was also indicted for robbery in connection with the murder.
Concurring Opinion
concurring.
I concur fully in the majority’s opinion. I write separately to address the admissibility of the prior robbery and murder. Although the majority did not consider this a significant issue, I believe the trial court erred in determining that Fielding’s shooting of a gas station attendant during a robbery 25 years ago is admissible and I would reverse on this issue as well.
The state’s argument that the similarities between the present case and the prior murder are “chilling” and show “criminal signature” is utter nonsense. Even if the number of similarities were dis-positive,
The state’s “analysis” of the robbery aspects of the two crimes is also unpersuasive. Gas stations are targets of robbery because they are known to have cash on the premises and robbery was clearly the motive in the prior incident. The facts of this case, however, do not suggest that robbery was the primary motive. While jewelry the victim was wearing was taken, there is no evidence that the victim’s car, cash, checkbook, or credit cards were taken.
The trial court must exclude evidence of an independent crime “unless the prejudice it creates is outweighed by its relevancy to the issues on trial.”
I am authorized to state that Justice Sears joins in this concurrence.
Farley v. State, 265 Ga. 622, 624 (458 SE2d 643) (1995) (test of admissibility is not number of similarities between incidents).
Robinson v. State, 246 Ga. 469, 470 (271 SE2d 786) (1980).
See Farley, 265 Ga. at 627-628 (Fletcher, J., and Sears, J., concurring specially).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- FIELDING v. State
- Status
- Published