Court Opinion

ID: 9671516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:38:14.838119+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:10.386035
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
Apparently the trial judge had been informed that the jury had reached a guilty verdict. The record should show how he knew, but it does not. The judge found and so stated for the record that the foreman inadvertently signed the not guilty form of verdict. There is nothing in the record to show that this statement is not true. Appellant’s counsel apparently agreed with the statement, becattse he made no objection to it.
After the foreman signed the guilty verdict form, the jurors in answer to a question by the judge stated that it was their verdict. In answer to the question by the prosecutor, “Was that your verdict prior to the time that you returned to the court, do each and every one of you jurors agree?” the jurors answered, “Yes.”
Especially in the absence of proof to the contrary, I would not disregard the answers of the jurors that the verdict of guilty was theirs prior to the time they returned to the courtroom, nor the statement of the judge that the not guilty form of verdict was inadvertently signed. There has been no attempt to show that these statements were not true.
No objection to the statements of the judge was made. If it appeared in the record that the judge had tried to influence their verdict, I would not hesitate to reverse.
In addition to taking the answers of the jurors as true, their verdict of one hundred years at the penalty stage of the trial would indicate that the jurors had no doubt about his guilt. Jurors would hardly assess a punishment of one hundred years to a man if they had believed him to be not guilty.
Since the record supports the findings of the trial judge and there has been no attempt to show that the record is not true, I respectfully dissent to the reversal.