Court Opinion

ID: 9499486
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:49:29.889257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:32.036638
License: Public Domain

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Writing for the majority in this ease, Judge Keith has done a masterful job of analyzing the principles of law condemning ex parte communications in criminal cases. However, I conclude that we need not decide whether the unique set of facts surrounding the defendant’s first trial resulted in a violation of his right to due process, because the remedy for such a violation would be, as the majority reasons, a new trial free of the prohibited communications. But that is exactly what the defendant received in this case, and there is no challenge whatever to the fairness of his second trial. Hence, the majority should ask itself: what is to be gained by providing the defendant with a second fair trial?
Had Barnwell been convicted at his original trial and had he found out subsequently that there was a due process violation of the kind outlined in the majority opinion, there would be an actual controversy for us to consider, on direct or collateral review. Here, however, there is none, because the first trial ended in a mistrial and the defendant was afforded a new trial, concerning the integrity of which no question has been raised. Although a discussion of the kind set out at length in the majority opinion is useful in terms of its guidance for future cases, I conclude that because no error occurred in connection with the second trial, no remedy is required, and that a third trial is, therefore, legally unjustified. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.