Court Opinion

ID: 9545031
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:04:52.321145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:54.760663
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE CASTLES:
I concur in the result, but not in all that is said.
MR. JUSTICE DOYLE:
I concur in the result, but not in all that is said.
MR. JUSTICE ADAIR,
specially concurring in result.
I concur in affirming the judgment of the trial court, but I do not agree with all that is said in the above opinion in chief.
In his brief on this appeal appellant’s counsel asserted that while he took but a single exception to any of the remarks made from the bench by the district judge during the course of the trial, yet there were other remarks to which no exceptions were taken, made by the presiding judge which appellant’s counsel urges prejudiced the jury. However, the chief opinion on this appeal recognizes the fact that one witness whose conduct in court occasioned the remarks complained of “was a trying, difficult and uncooperative witness” whose “conduct and attitude brought forth several judicial shots from the hip” and that such “conduct and attitude tried the patience of both court and counsel.”
It is quite apparent that the witness tried his “monkey shines” out in the wrong trial court, and before the wrong trial judge, and that the witness came out second best in the *595encounter. It was the trial judge’s duty to preside at the trial and this he did. He is an eminently, courageous, able and experienced trial judge who is not just about to surrender his seat on the bench to any “trying, difficult and uncooperative witness.”