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Brown v. State7/2/2001
On January 27, 1996, an anonymous informant called 911 and reported that a black male in a purple hat, black leather coat, and blue jeans was dealing drugs from a white automobile in an apartment complex. An officer dispatched to the site in response to the 911 call testified that he saw a man meeting the description standing next to a white car. The officer detained the man, later identified as appellant Fred Brown, based on the description.
A second officer dispatched to the scene found 58 hits of crack cocaine in plain view on the back seat of the white car. Through the car's license tag, the second officer learned that the car was registered to appellant. The car was inoperable, with one of its back windows broken out, and had been sitting in the parking lot for over a year. Appellant was indicted for possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
At trial, the officer who arrested appellant was permitted to testify over appellant's hearsay objection with respect to the description of the alleged drug dealer, as relayed to him by the dispatcher who had spoken with the anonymous informant, for the purpose of explaining the officer's conduct in arresting appellant. An officer not involved in the 1996 incident testified to appellant's 1990 conviction for possession of crack cocaine. Though present when appellant was arrested in 1990, this officer had no independent recollection of the incident. The trial court allowed the officer to lay the foundation and read the narrative portion of the1990 police report of the incident under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, even though he had not prepared the report. Appellant was convicted of the 1996 charge after the deadlocked jury received an Allen charge. The Court of Appeals affirmed appellant's conviction in Brown v. State, 245 Ga. App. 149 (537 SE2d 421) (2000). We granted certiorari to answer two questions regarding the trial court's admission of testimony read from a police report and the admission of hearsay testimony given by the officer who arrested appellant.
1.
First we address whether the trial court erred in allowing, as evidence of a similar transaction, the narrative portion of the police report of appellant's 1990 arrest to be read into evidence under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. Without the admission of the 1990 police report, the State did not met its burden under Williams v. State, 261 Ga. 640 (2) (409 SE2d 649) (1991) for admitting evidence of a similar transaction since the State did not present evidence to establish a sufficient connection or similarity between the independent offense and the crime charged such that proof of the former tended to prove the latter. The only evidence linking appellant to the 1990 crime was a certified conviction, which is insufficient, standing alone, to establish the required nexus. Stephens v. State, 261 Ga. 467 (6) (405 SE2d 483) (1991).
OCGA § 24-3-14 allows admission, under the business records exception, of any writing or record...made as a memorandum or record of any act, transaction, occurrence, or event...if the trial judge shall find that it was made in the regular course of any business and that it was the regular course of such business to make the memorandum or record at the time of the act, transaction, occurrence, or event or within a reasonable time thereafter.
This Court has had occasion to address the characteristics a document should have to be considered a business record. In Martin v. Baldwin, 215 Ga. 293 (110 SE2d 344) (1959), we addressed the admissibility of medical records under the business records exception. We stated that evidence admitted under the business records excepti
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