Court Opinion

ID: 9574326
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:04:10.103395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:22.895782
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice Sharp
dissenting:
In my view the trial judge’s instructions to the jury on defendant’s failure to testify thwarted the purpose of G.S. 8-54, and entitle defendant to a new trial. The instructions disregard this Court’s repeated admonition that “it is better to give no instruction concerning failure of defendant to testify unless he requests it.” State v. Bryant, 283 N.C. 227, 195 S.E. 2d 509 (1973) ; see, inter alia, State v. Barbour, 278 N.C. 449, 180 S.E. 2d 115 (1971) ; State v. Jordan, 216 N.C. 356, 5 S.E. 2d 156 (1939). The instruction also ignored and violated the Court’s warning to the trial judges that “the failure of a defendant to go upon the witneses stand and testify in his own behalf should not be made the subject of comment, except to inform the jury that a defendant may or may not testify in his own behalf as he may see fit, and his failure to testify ‘shall not create any presumption against him.’ G.S. 8-54.” State v. McNeill, 229 N.C. 377, 49 S.E. 2d 733 (1948).
The majority concede the challenged instruction was unduly repetitious and not to be commended but hold that its repetitiveness was not prejudicial. This conclusion ignores the fact that certain medicines taken in small doses may effect a cure while a large dose of the same medicine, or a small one indiscriminately repeated, can be fatal. I also believe the majority discounts the effect of the judge’s gratuitous instruction that the jury must not speculate why defendant did not take the stand or take the position that because he did not testify he had something to hide. To prohibit this thought was to suggest it. In addition, it would appear that the majority attaches no significance to the manner in which the judge prefaced the instruction, that is, “ ... I recall that the defendant, even though he offered no evidence, he did not take the stand and testify in his own behalf.” (Emphasis added.)
I believe the judge did defendant a disfavor by emphasizing his failure to testify and that it deepened “an impression which is perhaps hardly ever removed by an instruction which requires a sort of mechanical control of thinking in the face óf a strong *475natural inference.” State v. Jordan, supra at 366, 5 S.E. 2d at 161. For the reasons stated I vote for a new trial.
Justice Exum joins in this dissent.