Court Opinion

ID: 9543593
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:46:54.812877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:39.057109
License: Public Domain

LUMPKIN, Vice-Presiding Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the Court’s decision in this case and agree that further clarification of our decision in Duvall v. State, 780 P.2d 1178 (Okl.Cr.1989), is needed.
The fact situation in Duvall is very illustrative of the distinction to be made between “testimony”, which the trial court should not allow to be taken into the jury room, and a nontestimonial exhibit which may be reviewed by the jurors during their deliberations. As we stated in Duvall our decision in Martin v. State, 747 P.2d 316 (Okl.Cr.1987), sets forth the procedure to be utilized when jurors want to review the testimony of a witness presented at trial. That procedure is the same regardless of whether the testimony at trial is presented by the witness in person, by video tape or by the reading of testimony from a prior hearing or trial. However, as Duvall ex*196plained, when a video, audio, written or oral statement, transaction or event is obtained during the course of the investigation and identified and admitted during the course of the trial as an item of evidence, then that exhibit is allowed to be taken into the jury room with all other exhibits for the jurors to review. While these types of exhibits may contain statements of the defendant, they are not the testimony of a witness at trial. This is the distinction the trial court must make in its decision as to what exhibits may be taken into the jury room.