Court Opinion

ID: 9448553
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:39:37.493595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:28.864288
License: Public Domain

WASHINGTON, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result).
I concur in the result, and in most of what Judge PRETTYMAN has written. As to point 9 of the majority opinion, dealing with the “capital punishment” question addressed to the jurors, my view is that since the matter was not raised at the trial, we need not and should not pass upon it here. The interests of justice do not require us to consider it, because a verdict of second degree murder was reached, and thus the extreme penalty was not in fact imposed, and because a prompt objection at trial would have offered the Government an opportunity to avoid any possibility of error by questioning the jurors more precisely as to their attitude on capital punishment. However, I do deem it appropriate and in the interest of good judicial administration to urge, as the majority opinion does, that such precise questioning should be the practice in future cases.