Court Opinion

ID: 9541591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:26:59.475954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:03:52.706541
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Justice,
concurring:
¶ 6 I concur in the majority opinion and in that of Justice Durham. I write separately to address a bedrock judicial principle which I think the State has too easily passed over— stare decisis.
¶ 7 We held in Chess v. Smith, 617 P.2d 341, 345 (Utah 1980), that a trial judge has the responsibility to inquire as to why a defendant is appearing in court in prison clothes, even in the absence of defense objection. Absent such an inquiry and a reasoned determination that such an appearance is necessary, automatic reversal is the consequence. The United States Supreme Court, in Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976), struck this balance differently and held that in such a circumstance, the trial judge has no such responsibility. It concluded that the defendant must raise an objection to appearing in prison clothes. See id. at 512, 96 S.Ct. 1691.
¶ 8 The State and the dissent urge us to overrule Chess and follow Estelle. But both ignore the fact that we do not lightly overrule our prior opinions. See State v. Menzies, 889 P.2d 393, 399 (Utah 1994). In Menzies, we stated that given the great importance stare decisis has for the American system of common law, we will not overrule prior cases unless we are “clearly convinced that the rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changing conditions and that more good than harm will come by departing from precedent.” Id. (citations omitted). Neither the State nor the dissent has begun to meet this standard. We have not been presented any compelling reasons to conclude, as Menzies requires, that the original ruling was wrong, or that circumstances have changed and more harm than good will come from adhering to Chess. No one suggests that prisoners should appeal* in jail garb, or that it is not highly prejudicial. All that is argued is that trial judges should not be responsible for inquiring about this obvious fact when it occurs. No real reason is offered as to why this is so burdensome.1 Indeed, this is the first time the issue has been raised in the nineteen years since Chess, a fact that suggests trial judges and defense counsel have taken care of the problem nicely.
¶ 9 At bottom, the only justification offered for overruling Chess is that the 1976 holding in Estelle is contrary to our 1980 holding in Chess. Yet when Chess was decided, this court examined the Estelle case and chose not to follow the United States Supreme Court, as we are free to do. In other words, the State and the dissent simply disagree with Chess and the balance it struck between the interest in a judge’s need to assure a fair trial and the usual requirement that a party object to errors before the trial court must act. Whatever the merit of that view, the then-members of this court chose otherwise *3in Chess, after weighing these interests. By so doing, they foreclosed onr second-guessing them. We are not entitled to overturn their vote simply as an exercise of the raw power of incumbency. This would amount to a frontal assault on the principle of stare deci-sis. See generally State v. Shoulderblade, 905 P.2d 289, 292 (Utah 1995); Menzies, 889 P.2d at 398-99; State v. Thurman, 846 P.2d 1256, 1269 (Utah 1993). We must find the relatively high hurdle of Menzies is cleared, which has not been done here.
¶ 10 The only solid reason I can find for the State’s taking the extraordinary step of seeking an overruling of Chess is a concern that the evidence against defendant is overwhelming and the State does not want us to reverse the conviction. But such a result-oriented approach is not a legitimate basis for overruling a prior decision of this court. Reversals are part of the price we pay for having a system of law, rather than a system of ad hoc results. If the evidence is so strong, there is no reason to think that if the defendant is tried again, the same result would not be reached.
¶ 11 Associate Chief Justice DURHAM concurs in Justice ZIMMERMAN’S concurring opinion.

. The dissent asserts, as a reason for overruling Chess, the apparent lack of broad dissemination of the Chess ruling to trial judges by means other than an annotation in the Code of Criminal Procedure. See Diss. Op. at note 9. If, in fact, trial judges were unaware of the rule, I would have expected the issue to have re-emerged since Chess was decided in 1980. In any event, I certainly agree that steps should be taken by those training trial judges to make the Chess rule widely known.