Court Opinion

ID: 9533939
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:35:42.532098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:14.060150
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J., concurring.
Although I agree with the resolution reached by the majority, I write separately because its opinion fails to explain the basis for its correct statement that “the record fails to show there was any ex parte communication between the second judge and the prosecution.”
According to State v. Barker, 227 Neb. 842, 420 N.W.2d 695 (1988), the provisions of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-605 (Reissue 1985) prohibit a judge presiding at a trial from testifying in that trial on any matter whatsoever, and the fact that such a judge was not sworn as a witness does not remove his or her incompetency to testify. Barker further establishes that it was not necessary for the State to have objected to the judge’s statements to preserve the point of his incompetency. Thus, the comments of the judge in question must be treated as if he had remained silent. It is because of that legal reality and the fact that there is no other evidence of an ex parte conversation between the judge and the prosecution that the record fails to support defendant Douglas H. Jenson’s claim.
If the majority’s silence in regard to a judge’s incompetency to testify at a trial over which he or she is presiding signals some doubt about what this court said in that regard just a bit more than a year ago in Barker, we ought to deal with the issue and not be content with writing a mystery.