Court Opinion

ID: 9672607
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:57:54.299247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:29:14.631771
License: Public Domain

DALTON, Judge
(dissenting).
I find it necessary to dissent from the conclusion reached in the above case sustaining the following assignment of error: “The Court erred in not permitting defense counsel to ask Margaret Jung, the State’s witness, if she had refused to discuss the case with defense counsel on the Friday before the trial and that she was told by the Circuit Attorney of the City of St. Louis not to discuss the case with defense counsel for the reason that defense counsel was deprived of the right of showing bias and prejudice on the part of the witness.” (Italics ours.)
I dissent for the reason that the offer of proof made by the defendant-appellant in the trial of the case was not for the purpose of showing bias and prejudice on the part of the witness. There is nothing in the record tending to show that defendant’s counsel had any such purpose, as indicated in the assignment, in view or in mind at the time he sought to cross-examine the witness Jung. The portion of the transcript upon which this assignment is based fully appears in the opinion submitted and it expressly appears that the offer of proof was not for the purpose of showing bias and prejudice on the part of the witness. It is true that the court made an extended and erroneous statement of law to which no objection was made and no assignment of error is now levied against that statement. The matter of the offered evidence not tending to show bias and prejudice on the part of the witness was a matter discussed by the court, but not raised by defendant’s counsel. It appears for the first time in defendant’s motion for a new trial in subdivision 2, long after the court’s unfortunate speech. Both the offer of proof and the subsequent concluding statement of defendant’s counsel expressly show the intended purpose for which the excluded evidence was sought to be offered. The offer of proof concludes with the words “I think that would be admissible in evidence in this case, the thing that prevented me from investigating this case.” (Italics ours.) Further, the subsequent statement indicates the same purpose: “I wanted to ask if at the orders of the Circuit Attorney she refused to discuss this matter with me.” (Italics ours.) The court recognized that the offer was made to prove “prevention of investigation.” The court said: “I don’t think that that is a prevention of investigation.”
I am further of the opinion that the offer of proof, as made by defendant’s counsel, if proven, would not have been sufficient to sustain an inference of bias and prejudice on the part of the witness. In any event it was not offered for that purpose and defendant may not now complain that he was deprived of the right of showing bias and prejudice on the part of the witness by such cross-examination. The mere fact that the trial judge may have made an improper speech to which no objection was interposed is not prejudicial or reversible error in any case where the court’s ruling on the issue actually presented for decision was legally correct. Further, if the court properly ruled the issue presented to it, it is immaterial that he may have assigned a wrong reason or even a reason that was legally incorrect. In other words, it clearly appears to me that this case is being reversed on a ground that did not even occur to defendant’s counsel until after the unfortunate speech by the trial judge, and even then no offer of proof was made for the specific purpose about which the court was talking or about which appellant now complains, until the motion for a new trial was prepared and filed. At the time the evidence was excluded defendant’s counsel had not indicated any purpose of showing bias and prejudice on the part of the witness, either when the questions were asked, the offer of proof made or the court’s ruling entered.
I would, therefore, affirm the judgment.