Court Opinion

ID: 9680611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:35:07.97702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:29.672228
License: Public Domain

John A. Fogleman, Justice, dissenting. I concur in the dissent of the Chief Justice. In Sharp v. State, 51 Ark. 147, 10 S. W. 228, in reversing a conviction of a defendant because of questions asked and a remark made by the trial judge, this court quoted with approval the California Court when it said: ‘ ‘ * * * From the high and authoritative position of a judge presiding at a trial before a jury, his influence with them is of vast extent, and he has it in his power, by words or actions, or both, to materially prejudice the rights and interests of one or the other of the parties. By words or conduct he may on the one hand support the character or testimony of a witness, or on the other may destroy the same, in the estimation of the jury; and thus his personal and official influence is exerted to the unfair advantage of one of the parties, with a corresponding-detriment to the cause of the other.” I cannot see any reason why the statements of a trial judge admonishing a jury not to consider specified matters arising during the course of a trial cannot be presumed to have the same influence for fairness as they can for unfairness, particularly when the judge takes the extra precaution to inquire of each individual juror if he would and could abide by an admonition of the court. To reverse this case is to say that the offering of the questioned evidence was so prejudicial to the appellant that even the tremendous influence of the trial judge could not by any means remove the prejudice and that the jurors, depended upon to arrive at just and true verdicts, could not be depended upon to give an honest answer to the judge’s inquiry. I am unwilling to say this in the circumstances of this case.