Court Opinion

ID: 9761396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:41:52.290858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:23.516153
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge,
concurring in result.
In dealing with defendant’s claim that the trial court erred in overruling his objections to the cross-examination about blackouts, a more detailed statement of certain facts is required than that provided by the principal opinion. The facts are that defendant suffered two severe head wounds: one destroyed the lower portion of his face and one left a hole in his forehead. Defendant did not regain consciousness for several days and was hospitalized for more than ninety days. The sheriff testified that when he arrived at the scene he found defendant at the door of the trailer with “the lower portion of his face blown off”, his shirt and trousers drenched in blood. Defendant’s testimony was that after talking to his wife he lay down on a couch and the next thing that happened that he knew about was “[o]nly thing I knew it just got dark because something right here left a hole and everything and got dark” (emphasis supplied). The quoted statement obviously refers to the defendant’s inability to see and his loss of consciousness by reason of his wounds. Defendant was referring to the blow which tore off half his face (it was a blast from the shotgun). No doubt this did cause everything to get “dark.”
I disagree with the conclusion of the majority that the defendant’s statement refers to a “blackout” and thus opened the door for cross-examination about whether defendant had ever had “blacking out periods” before. Even if defendant had had episodes of blacking out sometime during his life, this fact would have no relation to losing consciousness or things becoming dark by reason of having half of his face blown away.
Although it is difficult to fathom why the prosecutor pursued the “blackout” cross-examination, particularly since defendant was not relying on the defense of not guilty by reason of mental defect, whatever the reason, there was no justification for the cross-examination. The undisputed evidence was that defendant’s unconsciousness on this occasion was due to his severe head wounds, not recurring “blackouts.”
The court finally shut off this irrelevant and immaterial line of inquiry by directing the prosecutor to “move on”. The irrelevant questions probably did not play any *262decisive part in the outcome of the case and I therefore am willing to concur in result, but the questions were irrelevant and immaterial, without any foundation, and the objections of defense counsel thereto should have been sustained.