Court Opinion

ID: 9767187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:12:11.597836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:29.301092
License: Public Domain

John I. Purtle, Justice, dissenting. In my opinion it was error to allow a mother and son to sit on the same petit jury. Although the son finally answered all the voir dire questions right, it still has the appearance of impropriety. No doubt the victim’s relatives would have answered the voir dire in the right manner as well. The point is, there comes a time when the black letter record will not stand alone to prove the facts stated therein. Therefore, I would start now and hold that two or more members of an immediate family should not be allowed to sit on the same trial, if for no other reason than to avoid any future appearance of impropriety. Suppose there were twelve members of the same family selected to serve on the same jury. Would that be proper? I think not. One per family is enough. It is a puzzle to me why many trial judges seem to try to qualify a juror as though there were no more people to serve. It only takes a few minutes, in most cases, to qualify another juror. This is preferable to trying the whole case again. The majority finds no prejudicial error in the state’s attorney asking the appellant to tell the jury “about that .38 pistol you carried out in Arizona.” The whole defense was based upon the theory that the appellant did not have a handgun at the time of the homicide. There was no showing whatsoever that there was a basis for the question. In my opinion the question was not asked in good faith but was a brazen attempt to gain for the state unfair advantage before the j ury. So far as I am concerned the state should be required to try the case again because its attorney deliberately violated the rules of evidence. Ordering the jury to disregard the question is like firing a pistol in their presence and then admonishing them to forget the ringing in their ears. Finally, I agree with appellant that Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1501 (2) (Repl. 1977) is unconstitutional in that it requires the accused to prove his innocence in this case. The statute in question requires an accused to prove an affirmative defense by a preponderance of the evidence. It seems to me an instruction should be given which provides that the state is required to prove the homicide was committed by the accused or he aided the commission of it by soliciting, commanding, inducing, procuring, counseling, or aiding another or others to commit the offense. Such an instruction would not place the burden on an accused to prove anything and it would require the state to prove the whole case which, as I understand it, is a constitutional requirement.