Appellant Bradley Stephens was convicted of incest against his step-daughter, following sexual abuse that began when the victim was five years old and continued until she was 16, when he impregnated her and took her to get an abortion. The trial court sentenced Appellant to 20 years in prison, with the first ten years to be served in confinement and the balance to be served on probation with a number of special conditions. The Court of Appeals affirmed Appellant’s conviction but vacated his sentence and remanded the case for resentencing due to the trial court’s erroneous imposition of special conditions of parole in addition to special conditions of probation. See Stephens v. State , 305 Ga. App. 339, 340 699 SE2d 558 2010. We granted Appellant’s petition for certiorari to answer two questions: 1. Should a trial court give a jury instruction on prior consistent statements See Council of Superior Court Judges Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions, § 1.31.60 4th ed.. See also Boyt v. State , 286 Ga. App. 460 3 649 SE2d 589 2007. 2. Did the Court of Appeals err in upholding the trial court’s amendments to Stephens’s sentence to include special conditions of probation We hold that the pattern jury instruction on prior consistent statements should not be given as a matter of course. Unlike some other states, Georgia admits prior consistent statements as substantive evidence and not solely to rehabilitate a witness’s trial testimony. As a result, in ordinary cases the instruction adds nothing to the deliberative process and may instead lead to juror confusion. However, in this case, as in most cases, the instruction did not harm Appellant, and so the Court of Appeals properly affirmed his conviction. We further hold that Appellant’s rights were not violated by the process the trial court followed in imposing his special conditions of probation. Accordingly, we affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment. 1. a At trial, the court gave, over Appellant’s objection, the pattern jury instruction on prior consistent statements: Should you find that any witness has made a statement prior to trial of this case that is consistent with that witness’s testimony from the witness stand and such prior consistent statement is material to the case and the witness’s testimony, then you are authorized to consider the other statement as substantive evidence. Council of Superior Court Judges Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions § 1.31.60 4th ed.. It is now settled law that prior consistent statements, when admissible at all, are substantive evidence. See Cuzzort v. State , 254 Ga. 745, 745 334 SE2d 661 1985. See also Woodard v. State , 269 Ga. 317, 320 496 SE2d 896 1998 reiterating that a witness’s prior consistent statements are admissible at trial only in rebuttal to an express or implied charge of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive, but when admitted they are substantive evidence.
Thus, the pattern charge simply states a truism, because ” ‘a jury may consider all the words it hears as substantive evidence, unless the trial court tells it to disregard those words or unless the trial court at the moment the words are uttered cautions the jury that the testimony is admitted only for a limited purpose.’ ” Stephens , 305 Ga. App. at 343-344 quoting Boyt , 286 Ga. App. at 466-467 emphasis in original. See also Johnson v. State , 289 Ga. 106, 110 709 SE2d 768 2011 same. As a result, the pattern instruction does not assist the deliberative process, and it may cause confusion by suggesting that prior consistent statements are a different or specially important type of substantive evidence.1 A jury charge may have been needed before Cuzzort , when prior consistent statements were admitted not as substantive evidence but only to rehabilitate an impeached witness, but Cuzzort eliminated that limitation. See Cuzzort , 254 Ga. at 745.
