Court Opinion

ID: 9770480
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:06:13.767387+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:17.729686
License: Public Domain

Minor W. Millwee, Justice (concurring). It is a little difficult to determine from the majority opinion whether the circuit judge or the defendant was on trial below. But it is clear that error was committed by the judge in going to the jury room in the manner indicated, and the attorney general has so conceded in his brief. The difficult question is whether the error was waived by appellant’s failure to object after the matter was called to his counsel’s attention. In reciting what transpired the court stated that counsel for the defendant made no “motion for a mistrial” at the time he was informed of the objectionable matters, but the court did not state whether counsel for the defendant objected to the procedure. In these circumstances, I would resolve the doubt in favor of the defendant and indulge the presumption that he did, in fact, object although he did not move for a mistrial. I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that no objection was necessary. In reaching this conclusion the majority are overruling the case of Durham v. State, 179 Ark. 507, 16 S. W. 2d 991, without saying so. That case involved the same error committed here and this court in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Hart held that the error was waived by failure to object. We have followed tbe same rule in-numerous other cases, many of them involving the death penalty, in connection with errors which are not objected to. In my opinion the majority do violence to this well-settled rule. I, therefore, concur in the result only.