Court Opinion

ID: 9528253
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:38:47.630585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:22:08.324064
License: Public Domain

R.S. Smith, J. (dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority that defendant’s judicial bias claim was not preserved, and that his claim that his confession was insufficiently corroborated was preserved. Unlike the majority, I conclude from this that we should decide the claim that was preserved: Was the confession sufficiently corroborated?
The majority avoids deciding this issue on the ground that defendant, on appeal, makes the mistaken assumption that he did not preserve the corroboration issue, and therefore his argument on corroboration is subsumed in an argument that trial counsel was ineffective. In other words, defendant argues on appeal that: (1) his confession was not adequately corroborated; and (2) trial counsel was ineffective for failing to preserve the *727point. Since we hold today that the point was preserved, the second half of defendant’s argument is unnecessary.
That, in my opinion, is not a reason not to address the first half. Though defendant did not consecrate a separate point heading in his brief to arguing that his confession was insufficiently corroborated, he has made the argument, fully and ably, in his brief and orally. The question presented is, as Judge George B. Smith’s dissent demonstrates, a difficult and important one. I do not suggest that I either agree or disagree with my namesake’s views on the merits of the question, but I think we ought to decide it.