Court Opinion

ID: 9767298
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:16:12.038252+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:30.269157
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
The state, through her criminal district attorney, has urged us to reconsider our holding, contending that the matters raised by Bill of Exception No. 3 show no error because no exception was reserved. The rule in this court is the same as that in civil cases when such a question arises.
When a bystanders’ bill of exception is filed and the state controverts the same by affidavits, we decide the issue raised from the affidavits.
The bystanders’ bill states simply that the argument was made, that an objection was made, and an exception reserved. This was supported, as the law requires, by the affidavits of three disinterested bystanders.
The controverting affidavit, as we construe it, states, first, that the argument was not made; second, that no objection or exception was taken; third, that the evidence supported the argument; and, fourth, that the argument was invited.
In view of what appears to us to be a discrepancy in the controverting affidavit, we have decided to accept the bystanders’ bill of exception. Since it shows that the assistant district attorney’s argument was manifestly improper and prejudicial and injected into the case some new and harmful fact not theretofore in evidence, the state’s motion for rehearing is overruled.