By: Don Samuel

Don Samuel — Tue, 02 May 2006 08:47:58 +0000

Justice Alito doesn’t seem to have a problem with the Georgia rule (as expressed, for example, in Klinect, which he cites somewhat approvingly in the footnote). The South Carolina rule, apparently unlike Georgia’s, involved a type of “weighing” which empowered the trial judge to exclude direct evidence that a named other person committed the crime, if the state’s case was sufficiently strong. In Georgia, however, this type of weighing does not occur. The cases which typically exclude defense evidence that some other dude did it, involve un-named other perpetrators (e.g., “A similar crime was committed by some other person when I was in jail; and I want the jury to hear about that, because the jury can believe that the perpetrator of the other crime — whover that may be — is likely the perpetrator of the crime that I am charged with”). The other type of case which frequently arises in Georgia involves the method by which the evidence is tendered (i.e., the other person’s out-of-court confession), as opposed to the admissibility of the evidence as a matter of relevance law. Nevertheless, Holmes certainly should loosen the reigns in Georgia to some extent.