Court Opinion

ID: 9549840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:25:28.502295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:58.169418
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Justice, Retired,
dissenting.
I am hard pressed to disagree with the logic employed by the majority in its analysis of the issues it raised in this case. My disagreement rather, is with the manner in which the issues resulting in a reversal were brought before the court.
After diligently studying this case for eight and one-half months, the court apparently had not found a way to reverse it on the issues raised by appellant. At this juncture, the court developed, completely on its own initiative, three reversible issues and asked for briefing on these new issues.1
Appellant was represented at trial and on appeal by competent counsel. Apparently, neither appellant nor his lawyer thought that appellant was prejudiced at trial; by the matters raised by this court. Only after appellant and his lawyer learned of the errors suggested by this court, did they think for the first time that these matters were prejudicial to appellant.
It should not be necessary to remind the majority that it is not an advocate; it should not take sides in a case, but rather, it should at all times be neutral and impartial. Here the majority has abrogated its traditional role and taken sides in this dispute. The majority has become de facto co-counsel for the defense, nay chief counsel, and deserves to be complimented for unusually fine and effective criminal defense advocacy. I do not recall another circumstance where this court has developed reversible issues completely on its own.
The majority worship daily at the shrines of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., and the late Chief Judge of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Learned Hand. Justice Holmes said:
At the present time in this country there is more danger that criminals will escape justice than that they will be subjected to tyranny.
Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100, 134, 24 S.Ct. 797, 806, 49 L.Ed. 114, 126 (1904).
Judge Learned Hand said:
Under our criminal procedure the accused has every advantage. While the prosecution is held rigidly to the charge, the accused need not disclose the barest outline of his defense. He is immune from question or comment on his silence; he cannot be convicted when there is the least fair doubt in the mind of any one of the 12 jurors. Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream. What we need to fear is the archaic formalism and the watery sentiment that obstruct, delay and defeat the prosecution of crime.
A number of errors were committed in the trial of this case. These errors have been identified by the majority. However, the evidence of appellant’s guilt was so overwhelming that the errors were rendered harmless. It is inconceivable that *77the jury would have acquitted appellant even if the trial errors had not occurred.
I would affirm.

. I have long since repented for my minor ministerial role in causing this briefing.