Court Opinion

ID: 9631331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:34:39.403458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:52.131144
License: Public Domain

MONTGOMERY, Justice (specially concurring). I CONCUR with the result reached in the plurality opinion, for most of the reasons stated in Part II of the opinion. I find that the prosecutor’s violation of the trial court’s pre-trial orders in referring to the defendant’s military conviction and eliciting testimony as to the defendant’s previous alias amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution’s references to these subjects in violation of the court’s orders — going so far as to call the defendant a “deserter” on cross-examination and in closing argument — for me “tip the scales” in the direction of reversible error. Since I do not agree that other errors were committed in the trial, I obviously do not believe the doctrine of cumulative error is applicable to this case. I do not agree that the trial court’s failure to make a record of whatever transpired at the time the instructions were settled amounted to fundamental error. I also do not agree that the trial court’s communication with the juror outside the presence of the defendant, given all the circumstances in this case, constituted reversible error; and I join in Justice Baca’s dissent on this issue. I understand the plurality opinion to reject the defendant’s attack on the trial court’s instruction on first degree murder, and I agree with this disposition. Since a new trial is necessary, I make no decision on whether or not the evidence satisfied the State’s burden of proof.