This is the second appearance of this case before this court. In Bishop v. State, 241 Ga. App. 517 526 SE2d 917 1999 Bishop I, we reversed the superior court’s order denying defendant Kyle Richard Bishop’s motion to suppress audiotaped recordings made by the parents of the underage1 victim daughter of her conversations with the defendant. Subsequently, a Cobb County jury convicted the defendant of child molestation2 Count 1, aggravated child molestation3 Counts 2-3, and aggravated sexual battery4 Count 4. The defendant was sentenced consecutively and concurrently to forty years confinement, to serve thirty, and the remainder probated upon the underlying facts as set out in Bishop I. The defendant now appeals, contending that the superior court erred: a in admitting the testimony of the victim’s mother as to a telephone conversation she overheard between the victim and the defendant, a recording of which we suppressed in Bishop I; b in refusing to admit Defendant’s Exhibit 3, a typewritten note to the defendant purportedly signed by the victim, for confusing the question of the note’s admissibility with its authenticity as written by the defendant; and c in not admitting testimony that the victim had previously been molested upon expert State’s testimony describing the victim as exhibiting characteristics consistent with having earlier been sexually abused as a child. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.
1. The General Assembly amended OCGA § 16-11-66, effective April 20, 2000, permitting parents, as third parties, to intercept and tape telephone conversations to which their children are parties in circumstances upon a “reasonable or good faith belief that such conversation . . . is evidence of criminal conduct involving such child in criminal activity as a victim or an attempt, conspiracy, or solicitation to involve such child in criminal activity affecting the welfare or best interest of such child. OCGA § 16-11-66 d;5 Malone v. State, 246 Ga. App. 882, 884-885 541 SE2d 431 2000. The defendant correctly argues that OCGA § 16-11-62 makes it “unlawful for . . . any person in a clandestine manner intentionally to overhear, transmit, record or attempt to overhear, transmit, or record the activities of another which occur in a private place and out of public view.” OCGA § 16-11-62 1. However, the defendant errs insofar as he further asserts that the 2000 amendment cannot be applied retroactively to the 1996-1997 offenses of which he was convicted.
