Court Opinion

ID: 9578728
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:47:52.372771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:28.343337
License: Public Domain

Fromme, J.,
concurring. The complaining defendants, who contend it was reversible error not to give a limiting instruction as to Green’s oral confession, failed to request the instruction in the trial court. K.S.A. 60-251(b) provides, “[n]o party may assign as error the . . . failure to give an instruction unless he or she objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict stating distinctly the matter to which he or she objects . . . .”
I do not believe the harmless beyond a reasonable doubt rule, expressed in Syllabus ¶ 4 and in the corresponding portion of the opinion, will cure both the erroneous introduction of the Green oral confession and the error in failing to give the required limiting instruction.
I have been unable to find any case in which the harmless error rule has been used to cure both the error in admitting the evidence in violation of the Bruton rule and the additional error in failing to limit the impact of that evidence to the confessor. In the present case, however, the complaining parties waived any error as to the failure to instruct by failing to make an objection in the trial court. I concur in the affirmance.