Court Opinion

ID: 9791513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:12:43.2688+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:36.714559
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE DAY
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from point IV of the majority opinion and would hold that the trial court should have declared a mistrial because of the improper comment concerning defense objections to the submission of a verdict of murder in the first degree to the jury. The standard instruction used in all criminal cases, and given to the jury in this case, states inter alia:
“The court did not by any words uttered during the trial, and the court does not by these instructions, give or intimate, or wish to be understood by you as giving or intimating, any opinions as to what has or has not been proved in this case, or as to what are or are not the facts in the case.”
That instruction was rendered virtually meaningless when the court permitted the jury to know that the defendant’s counsel had objected to the instruction on murder in the first degree to the jury and after due deliberation the court had concluded that he would instruct on first degree murder and submit to the jury a verdict thereon. I agree with the argument of defense counsel that the statements by the trial court were tantamount to an impermissible and highly prejudicial comment on the evidence. As counsel stated to the court at the time: “Legal matters, legal rulings and discussions about the instructions are not matters for the information of the jury.”
*173MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON authorizes me to state that he joins in this dissent.