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Broadnax-Woodland v. State2/18/2004
A jury convicted Jacquelyn Broadnax-Woodland of driving under the influence, failing to maintain her lane, disobeying a traffic control device, and having no proof of insurance. The trial court sentenced her to serve 24 hours in jail and complete the remainder of her 18-month sentence on probation. She appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting the police report into evidence and allowing the jury to consider the report during deliberation, and erred in denying her motion for a directed verdict on the charge of driving with no proof of insurance. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
We view the evidence on appeal in the light most favorable to the verdict, and no longer presume the defendant is innocent. We do not weigh the evidence or decide the witnesses' credibility, but only determine if the evidence is sufficient to sustain the convictions. Taylor v. State, 226 Ga.App. 254, 255, 485 S.E.2d 830 (1997).
Viewed in that light, the evidence at trial established that the defendant passed a police officer and ran a red light on Memorial Drive in DeKalb County. The officer observed the defendant speeding and weaving, and pulled her over. Her eyes were half-closed, and the officer had to knock on the window before she rolled it down. Her speech was slurred and difficult to understand, and she could not produce her driver's license or proof of insurance, and the officer smelled alcohol. When she got out of the car in response to the officer's instruction, she staggered and swayed, and her clothes were in disarray. The officer administered the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which the defendant failed, but when he asked her to perform the walk and turn test, the defendant began dancing and told him to do what he had to do because she was not going to take any more tests.
The officer placed the defendant under arrest and took her to the DeKalb County jail, where a deputy sheriff attempted three times to administer a breathalyzer test to the defendant. Each time, despite instructions to the contrary, she blew repeated short breaths into the machine instead of long steady breaths, and the machine did not get a sufficient sample to test for alcohol. After the third unsuccessful try, the arresting officer determined that the defendant had refused to take the test.
1. The defendant contends that the trial court committed reversible error by allowing the police officer's arrest report to go out with the jury during its deliberations. At trial, the defendant objected to the admission of the report based on the "continuing witness" rule, because allowing the jury to reread the report during its deliberations *670 would lend the written report more weight than the oral testimony that is heard only once. The State argued that, because the defendant so thoroughly cross-examined the officer regarding the contents of the report and impeached his credibility on certain points, that the report was admissible as a prior consistent statement. The trial court relied on Evans v. State, 253 Ga.App. 71(1), 558 S.E.2d 51 (2001), and admitted the report.
In Evans, a panel of this court found no error in admitting a police report into evidence as a prior consistent statement after the defendant raised an issue regarding the validity of the report's contents during cross-examination. Id. at 75, 558 S.E.2d 51. The court noted specifically that the defendant waived his continuing witness objection by failing to raise it at trial. Id. In Cox v. State, 263 Ga.App. 266, 268-269(2)(b), 587 S.E.2d 205 (2003), a case similar to the one before us, this court distinguished Evans, holding that, in the presence of a continuing witness objection and the absence of a charge that the police officer fabricated his testimony, the trial court erred in all
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