Court Opinion

ID: 9512348
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:13:29.420597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:21.880732
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MORRIS
dissents.
¶29 The Court overreaches in its search for prejudice and perpetuates *386the stereotypes from which it professes to protect Miller. I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that the municipal court improperly admitted evidence of Miller’s intimate relationship with Benware. The State’s allegedly prejudicial remarks emphasized the intimate nature of the relationship between Miller and Benware in order to demonstrate that Miller had a motive to make the call in order to protect Benware. The State’s characterization of the relationship did not emphasize its same sex nature. The State instead focused on the length and intimacy of the relationship between Miller and Benware.
¶30 The State argued that the long-term intimate nature of the relationship between Miller and Benware proved qualitatively different than a mere friendship to demonstrate Miller’s motive to protect Benware. The Court appears to concede that evidence regarding the nature of the relationship would have been relevant and admissible had the relationship been a heterosexual one. ¶ 14. Yet the Court concludes that such evidence should have been inadmissible here solely because it concerned a same sex relationship. Id.
¶31 Miller used voir dire in an effort to uncover any potential for prejudice arising from Miller’s sexual orientation and her relationship with Benware. Miller’s counsel questioned the jury exhaustively about same sex relationships and the potential for prejudice against a lesbian defendant. Miller’s counsel failed to unearth any potential prejudice during voir dire. I would not assume that any unspoken prejudice among the potential jurors rose to the level of a potential juror being more likely to convict Miller for misdemeanor obstruction of a peace officer due to the fact that Miller and Benware had established an intimate relationship for thirteen years. I dissent from the Court’s conclusion that these limited remarks tainted the jury to the point of depriving Miller of a fair trial.
CHIEF JUSTICE McGRATH and JUSTICE RICE join in the foregoing dissent.