Court Opinion

ID: 9530139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:57:34.073742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:00.490074
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, dissenting: I do not agree that a new trial is necessary. Although the circumstances under which the statement of the defendant was obtained from the investigator for defense counsel are not shown by the record, its use by the State was clearly improper as the opinion of the court emphasizes. I do not condone that use, but I agree with the appellate court that, in the context of this case, such use did not constitute reversible error. That the insubstantial impeachment of defendant resulting from use of the statement was not regarded by him as seriously prejudicial seems to me apparent from the fact that it was not even mentioned as error in defendant’s post-trial motion. Given the quality and quantity of proof of guilt in this case, which includes positive identification by two eyewitnesses, testimony by two others that defendant admitted participation in the robbery, and many corroborating circumstances, the totality of which the appellate court characterized as “overwhelming,” it seems to me clear that the error in using the statement “was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Chapman v. California (1967), 386 U.S. 18, 24, 17 L. Ed. 2d 705, 711, 87 S. Ct. 824,828. I would affirm the trial and appellate court judgments. MR. JUSTICE RYAN joins in this dissent.