Court Opinion

ID: 9846595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:44:06.934849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:39.599527
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
I agree. With respect to Division 2, the reason for what appears to be a harsh rule is that it is realistically nearly impossible, as a practical if not a legal matter, to erase evidence from jurors’ minds. Excluding it is the only sure way to avert its influence on the jury’s decision.
Procedural law provides two devices for doing so. The most commonly used device is a timely objection. The second is a motion in limine, an even more cautious device. Allowing a motion to strike after the harm has occurred, when a timely and valid objection could have been made, is not satisfactory nor necessary as a third device.
There was adequate opportunity in this case to raise the objection. Defendant had insisted that the State prove whether or not defendant was advised of his Miranda rights before the officer testified *753about any conversation they had regarding the money taken from defendant when he was arrested. After that was accomplished, the State asked the detective what happened, and, as the majority states, no objection was made when he related the conversation. In fact, no objection was made to it at any time until after another subject had been introduced and objection by way of the motion to strike the testimony was made.
If this device were permitted in such circumstances, it would require more frequent use of the legal fiction that jurors can and do completely erase from their conscious and subconscious minds evidence, damaging to the movant, which they have already heard or seen.