Court Opinion

ID: 9669679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:05:54.444583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:59.033886
License: Public Domain

Gillespie, J.,
dissenting:
*129I dissent -with considerable reluctance. My colleagues have given careful and dedicated study to this case, and I have great respect for their collective judgment. In cases of this kind the real problem of the courts is to balance the rights vouchsafed to the individual with the rights and the needs of the community and the State. It is nearly impossible to try a criminal case of any importance without some error being committed, and I believe that within the framework of the guarantees of the law and the Constitutions an appellate court should view errors in the perspective of Miss. Rules Rules 11 regarding harmless error.
The majority has found three errors, two of which do not in my opinion exist, and the third should not work a reversal within the meaning and purpose of Rule 11.
I.
The majority holds that the indictment should have been quashed because it did not set out verbatim the obscene words used by the defendant in the telephone conversation. The indictment set out the substance of the obscene words and stated that the language was too filthy to be spread upon the records of the court. The general rule in other jurisdictions is that an indictment in a case of this kind is sufficient if the substance of the obscene words is set forth in the indictment and it is charged that the words are so filthy that it would be offensive to public decency to have them made a part of the record.
A similar question arose in Williams v. State, 130 Miss. 827, 94 So. 882 (1922), and this Court stated that, “If timely objection had been made it would perhaps have been the duty of the state to amend the affidavit by more fully describing the alleged obscene matter which appears to be the whole or a part of a publication called The Wampus Cat, and to have either set out in full the obscene matter therein, or alleged *130that it was too obscene to be spread upon the records of the court.” 130 Miss, at 843.
It is said that the quotation is a dictum, but it is an expression of this Court and constituted a part of its reasoning process. It followed the general rule announced by the following authorities : Dunlop v. U. S., 165 U. S. 486, 17 S. Ct. 375, 41 L. Ed, 799 (1897); Lanoy v. State, 94 Fla. 1175, 115 So. 510 (1928); People v. Friedrich, 385 Ill. 175, 52 N. E. 2d 120 (1944); McNair v. People, 89 Ill. 441 (1878); Kinnaird v. Commonwealth, 134 Ky. 575, 121 S. W. 489 (1909); Commonwealth v. Allison, 227 Mass. 57, 116 N. E. 265 (1917); State v. Van Wye, 136 Mo. 227, 37 S. W. 938 (1896); Charville v. State of Ohio, 6 Ohio App. 236 (1916); State v. Zurhorst, 75 Ohio St. 232, 79 N. E. 238 (1906).
II.
Another error assigned by the majority for reversal concerns the action of the trial court in permitting the prosecuting witness to write the two obscene sentences on a piece of paper and passing the paper around to the jury. This seems to me to be a matter within the sound discretion of the court. It cannot be said' that the confrontation rule was violated. The witness was sitting in the witness chair. It seems that the courts of any community should have the right to defer to the delicacies of opinion and if a witness would be embarrassed by speaking the words it should be left to the sound discretion of the trial court. It is entirely possible that if witnesses in cases of this kind are required by the court to utter filthy and obscene words from the witness stand, they will simply refuse to subject themselves to that kind of embarrassment and the administration of the laws will suffer. In my opinion, there is no merit in the contention that appellant was prejudiced by the way the witness communicated to the jury the obscene words involved. There are no *131known cases requiring a reversal for this alleged error. Moreover, in my opinion, counsel for appellant waived any objection that he had to this method of introducing the evidence because when he cross-examined the prosecuting witness he told her not to repeat the obscene words. I think that this was acquiescence and waiver.
III.
The third error assigned by the majority for reversal of this case consisted of permitting the prosecuting attorney to ask the defendant if he had called seventeen different women and asked them for dates. The first question included the statement whether he made the same sort of proposition to that party. The objection was then made to the court on the ground that it was an attempt to prove another crime. The court stated there was nothing in the question to indicate that this was an attempt to prove another crime, and thereupon the next sixteen questions simply asked the defendant if he had called certain ladies without any suggestion that there was anything criminal about the call. Therefore, all of the sixteen questions after the court’s ruling had nothing to do with proof of another crime, and the cases concerning proof of other crimes are not applicable. ’
The defendant had offered himself for cross-examination and there is ample authority for the proposition that a wide range of latitude is allowed not only to test his memory but to impeach him. I have serious doubts if an error was committed under the particular circumstances of this ease. However, I believe that the court should have sustained the objection. This does not require a reversal of the case. Miss. Eule 11 is as follows:
No judgment shall be reversed on the ground of misdirection to the jury, or the improper admission or exclusion of evidence, or for error as to the matter *132of pleading or procedure, unless it shall affirmatively appear, from the whole record, that such judgment has resulted in a miscarriage of justice. (Emphasis added).
Can this Court say there was a miscarriage of justice? I think not. The proof in this case is so overwhelming that no jury in search of truth could have rendered any other verdict than guilty. There is no constitutional question involved in this matter of evidence and it is, in my opinion, a classic case for the proper application of the harmless error rule. This Court has applied this rule in criminal cases numerous times where there was error in the admission or exclusion of evidence. Traxler v. State, 244 Miss. 403, 142 So. 2d 14 (1962); Stokes v. State, 240 Miss. 453, 128 So. 2d 341 (1961); Williams v. State, 239 Miss. 839, 120 So. 2d 535 (1960).