Court Opinion

ID: 9657039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:11:27.565021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:40.036510
License: Public Domain

TOMUANOVICH, Justice
(dissenting).
Because I cannot agree with the majority that permitting jurors unsupervised review of a videotaped interview of the victim constitutes “harmless error,” I dissent. Allowing a jury to view such a videotape at its discretion is tantamount to sending the alleged victim herself into the jury room. I simply cannot imagine anything more prejudicial to a defendant than permitting the jury hearing her or his case to view and review the videotaped allegations of a four-year-old child.
The Rules of Criminal Procedure, which were adopted before videotapes were widely available, are silent as to their use in court. Rule 26.03, however, provides the procedure to be followed whenever jurors request to review evidence presented at trial:
1. If the jury, after retiring for deliberation, requests a review of certain testimony or other evidence, the jurors shall be conducted to the court room. The court, after notice to the prosecutor and defense counsel, may have the requested parts of the testimony read to the jury and permit the jury to rexamine the requested materials admitted into evidence.
Minn.R.Crim.P. 26.03, subd. 19(2)(1991). This procedure should have been followed. The trial court should have accepted the videotape into evidence. When the jury requested to review it, the jurors should have been conducted back into the courtroom after notice had been given to both the prosecutor and defense counsel. A record should have been made of the jury’s request, which portions of the tape were replayed, and any comments made by members of the jury, counsel, the defendant, or the trial court. Straying from this procedure and permitting the jury unlimited access to this single piece of highly prejudicial evidence clearly constitutes reversible error. I would remand the case for a new trial. *