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Official Code of Georgia Annotated

Title 24. EVIDENCE · Chapter 6. WITNESSES · Article 1. GENERAL PROVISIONS

24-6-608. Evidence of character and conduct of witness.

Active

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

  1. (a)

    The credibility of a witness may be attacked or supported by evidence in the form of opinion or reputation, subject to the following limitations:#

    1. (1)

      The evidence may refer only to character for truthfulness or untruthfulness; and#

    2. (2)

      Evidence of truthful character shall be admissible only after the character of the witness for truthfulness has been attacked by opinion or reputation evidence or otherwise.#

  2. (b)

    Specific instances of the conduct of a witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness’s character for truthfulness, other than a conviction of a crime as provided in Code Section 24-6-609, or conduct indicative of the witness’s bias toward a party may not be proved by extrinsic evidence. Such instances may however, in the discretion of the court, if probative of truthfulness or untruthfulness, be inquired into on cross-examination of the witness:#

    1. (1)

      Concerning the witness’s character for truthfulness or untruthfulness; or#

    2. (2)

      Concerning the character for truthfulness or untruthfulness of another witness as to which character the witness being cross-examined has testified.#

  3. (c)

    The giving of testimony, whether by an accused or by any other witness, shall not operate as a waiver of the accused’s or the witness’s privilege against self-incrimination when examined with respect to matters which relate only to character for truthfulness.#

The notes below are printed with the section but are not enacted law (O.C.G.A. § 1-1-1(c)). They are shown apart from the text.

History

Code 1981, § 24-6-608, enacted by Ga. L. 2011, p. 99, § 2/HB 24.

Cross references

A witness’s character for truthfulness or untruthfulness, Fed. R. Evid. 608.

Law reviews

For article, “The Need For a Special Exception to the Hearsay Rule in Child Sexual Abuse Cases,” see 21 Ga. St. B.J. 50 (1984). For article, “An Analysis of Georgia’s Proposed Rules of Evidence,” see 26 Ga. St. B.J. 173 (1990). For article, “Character Evidence in the Civil Setting,” see 26 Ga. St. B.J. 20 (Dec. 2020).

Read the official page (the state's PDF, opened at the page this text was read from).

Current through: Including Acts of the 2025 Regular Session of the General Assembly.

Text read from t24-ch1-7-(v20)-2023-pdf.pdf, Volume V20, 2023 edition, pages 495 to 496; merge action: annotated; file SHA-256 f2f9d1712dd4.