Opinion ID: 2040262
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: issues

Text: The defendant was at liberty under bond prior to and during the trial and did not appear for the conclusion of the proceedings following the State's resting of its case in chief. The trial judge called the jury's attention to this voluntary absence in its final Instruction No. 7 which advised that they could take such absence into consideration. Although the instruction did comment upon the accused's absence, it did not instruct the jury that they could draw an inference of guilt from such absence, as is argued by the defendant in his brief. The defendant has failed to set forth the verbatim objection made to the instruction at trial, as required by Appellate Rule 8.3(A)(7), thus we will not treat the issue further other than to say that it appears to be without merit. We further note that there is nothing in the record to suggest that the defendant's absence was other than voluntary. We find no reversible error. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed. GIVAN, C.J., and HUNTER and PIVARNIK, JJ., concur. DeBRULER, J., dissents with opinion.