Court Opinion

ID: 9833840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 23:05:11.05499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:44:07.620119
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
In the motion for rehearing, appellant strenuously contends that the exclusion of Lee Falkner, agent of and witness for appellant, from the court room, during the trial of the case, is error, and interprets our opinion to mean that appellant was in the court room, during the trial, when in fact he was not present at the trial.
We do not believe our opinion susceptible to such construction. The very paragraph which is thus erroneously construed does not mention the trial, but refers solely to the transaction out of which the suit grows.
But, be that as it may, we now desire to say that we commented as little as possible upon the matter of the exclusion from the court room of the witness Falk-ner, believing that the trial court, before whom the cause was tried without the intervention of the jury, merely exercised his sound discretion in the matter and disclosed a disposition to see that these ignorant negroes obtained as fair a trial as the court could possibly give; but appellant’s insistence in the motion for a rehearing compels us to here make a public record of why the trial court, acting within his sound discretion and impelled by his duty to give these ignorant negroes a fair trial, excluded the witness from the court room.
In qualifying the bill of exceptions, the trial court, in part, states the facts as follows : “Defendant’s grown son was present and assisting counsel, and the court had information that the presence of the witness Falkner during the testimony of some of the witnesses for plaintiff would probably be intimidating to some of them, they being negroes and he being a white man who had assisted in taking the deed sought to be- canceled and having worked a long time as rider and investigator for Phil*525lips, etc. The court advised counsel that he would give him all necessary time to confer with Falkner from time to time and at any time during the taking of testimony, which was done, and declined to excuse the witness from the rule just as a precaution against the possibility of there being any truth in the matter of whether his presence might intimidate any of the negro witnesses.”
This court wishes to publicly record its approval of the care with which Judge Nat W. Brooks tried this case and the precautions he took in endeavoring to give these negroes a fair trial. He is to be commended, not condemned, for his ruling. He has set an example that gives him an enviable place on the Bench and one that commands the respect of Bench and Bar.
Not only does appellant show nothing that smacks of injustice or injury done him in the ruling of the trial court, but the entire record shows that the trial court acted wisely in excluding the witness and that he should have done so.
The motion is overruled.