Court Opinion

ID: 9514663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:50:59.176274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:19.808427
License: Public Domain

SABERS, J.,
dissenting.
[¶ 39.] 1. If the poison of these prior bad acts has this effect upon the majority writer, a reasonably fail’ and objective jurist, what effect did it have on the twelve jurors in Mr. Wright’s ease.10
[¶ 40.] 2. What chance did Mr. Wright have to receive a fair trial when the jurors were judging his conduct through the poison of the prior bad acts? None or almost none.
[¶ 41.] 3. In this case, the poison of the prior bad acts dominates the trial from the outset. Mr. Wright’s conviction was a foregone conclusion. If jury trials are going to be dominated by prior bad acts, why have a trial at all? If appeals are going to be dominated by prior bad acts, why not eliminate appeals and simply rubber-stamp convictions.
[¶ 42.] 4. The majority writer discourses on and on for 26 paragraphs to attempt to convey a sense of justice and fairness to these proceedings. But why? If these proceedings are dominated from the start by the poison of the prior bad acts, it makes no sense.
[¶ 43.] 5. The majority writer goes on to remind the reader that the trial court instructed the jury that the prior bad acts were only to be used for a limited purpose. Nonsense, mule muffins or horse apples as stated in M.A.S.H. These prior bad acts were used to poison the proceedings and the jury, from the beginning, that Mr. Wright was a bad man, who did it before and who did it again.
[¶ 44.] 6. I am not saying Mr. Wright was right, but the system was wrong to stack the deck against him and pretend to give him a “fair trial.” A fair and impartial jury should have determined whether he committed the acts as charged and whether there was sufficient justification for his conduct. It did not, but it was not the jury’s fault. They were poisoned from the beginning and Mr. Wright was wronged by the system. He never had a chance to get a fair trial in this case.
[¶ 45.] 7. Therefore, we should reverse and remand for a fair trial.
[¶ 46.] AMUNDSON, Justice, joins this dissent.

. At this point in the proceedings, it even seems strange to me to refer to the defendant as Mr. Wright.