Court Opinion

ID: 9712743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:59:07.956865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:14.115555
License: Public Domain

Mr. JUSTICE MILLS, dissenting: At best, the doctrine of “cumulative error” is a bucket of snakes. And, like the angels on the pin head, how many are too many? It is, of course, a subjective test and I suspect that reasonable minds will ever differ. Such is the instant case apparendy. I cannot concur in the final judgment of my brothers. The obvious inference and conclusion that we must draw from their opinion is that not one of the errors, standing solo, would be sufficient to reverse this conviction. Neither the prosecutor’s opening statement, the accomplice’s testimony, nor the shackles on the witnesses — according to the majority — was sufficient to hold the trial unfair. Would two of the three have been sufficient? We will never know. But three, they say, is adequate — just enough weight in one balance pan to tip the scales for the defendant. But here, the errors were not even preserved! There was not an objection, there was not a tendered instruction, there was not even a post-trial motion contesting these issues in the trial court i There was not one single action taken to register disquietude with the manner in which the subject errors evolved. I am at a loss to comprehend how such alleged errors, standing alone being acceptable, and not found objectionable at trial, and not preserved by post-trial motions, can now — for the first time in the judicial process— be declared so horrendous and shocking as to require reversal. I do not reject the “cumulative error” philosphy out of hand. But this, to my view, is not the case for its application. Three singularly innocuous errors, to which no objections were made, should not now be canonized by this court in what amounts to a trial de novo on those issues. Furthermore, it was only via cumulative error that the plain error doctrine could be ultimately effectuated here since there was no preservation of error below. This is a shakey foundation indeed and I do not believe it sturdy enough to support a reversal of the trial court. Ergo, my dissent.