Court Opinion

ID: 9581425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:14:52.64616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:56.673417
License: Public Domain

Deen, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
While concurring with the judgment of affirmance, I cannot agree with the holding that the exclusion of the tape recording in this case was error of any kind. Evidence of prior threats levelled at the defendant by the deceased may be admissible to show that the defendant’s fear for his own life was reasonable, but in the instant case there were no real threats contained in the tape recording.
Reviewing this issue requires listening to the recording. Having listened to the entire tape, this writer concludes that the only objective and realistic description of the tape’s contents is that of an inordinately inebriated man who alternatively declares his love for those present and then verbally abuses them. (In a portion of that verbal abuse, which was addressed to the defendant’s girl friend but concerned the defendant, the victim only boasted that he would have the defendant perform fellatio.) The tape recording clearly indicates that the people who were actually present hardly took the victim’s drunken tirade seriously; for this court to do otherwise would mock reality.
Because the tape recording in question contained no threat by the victim against the defendant, the trial court’s exclusion of that recording was not error.
I am authorized to state that Chief Judge Birdsong joins in this special concurrence.