Court Opinion

ID: 9533756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:19.745916+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:09.872500
License: Public Domain

Opinion Concurring in Result
DeBruler, J.
I agree that appellant’s claim regarding the admissibility of evidence obtained through the search of his automobile is not before the Court, having been expressly waived by appellant’s counsel at trial. I agree that Harrison v. State, (1972) 258 Ind. 359, 281 N.E.2d 98, supports this position. I cannot agree with the statement in the majority opinion purporting to disapprove the holdings of Zion v. State, (1977) 266 Ind. 563, 365 N.E.2d 766, and Lockridge v. State, (1975) 263 Ind. 678, 338 N.E.2d 275.
Initially I would point out that a basic rule of jurisprudence provides that courts decide only so much as is necessary to resolve the cases before them. In Zion it was necessary for the Court to decide whether Zion’s challenge to identification testimony was preserved on appeal before we could treat the merits of that challenge. The Court held that the issue was adequately preserved by Zion’s motion to suppress made the morning of trial, and that the confrontation sought to be challenged was not unnecessarily suggestive. The former holding is the logical prerequisite of the latter, and is not, therefore, “dictum” as described by the dissent in Zion. 365 N.E.2d at 770. In the present case, on the other hand, appellant’s claim is completely disposed by the holding that he has waived the issue of the automobile search. Comment on what result would obtain if the facts of this case were *631comparable to those in Zion is not necessary to the Court’s decision, and is therefore merely dictum. The practice of including dictum inconsistent with precedent in the opinions of this Court can only lead to confusion and errors among the bar and lower courts of our State. See e.g., Holes v. State, (1977) Ind. App., 369 N.E.2d 1098, 1100.
Moreover, Harrison itself purports to state a rule much broader than its facts warrant. Harrison, like the present case, involved an explicit waiver of challenges to evidence allegedly obtained by illegal search, yet undertook to hold that in all cases, failure to object to evidence at trial precludes challenge to that evidence on appeal, notwithstanding that a motion to suppress has been made and overruled before trial. In support of this rule Harrison cites three 1971 cases, none of which deal with the necessity of a trial objection after the overruling of a suppression motion, and an annotation from the American Law Reports Anno., 50 A.L.R.2d 531 (1955), which simply states that some jurisdictions require further objection after denial of a motion to suppress and that some do not. 50 A.L.R.2d at 591-92.
Assuming that the merits of Zion were properly before the Court for reconsideration, I see no “sound and practical reason” why an issue which has been fully litigated and ruled upon on the morning of trial should not be considered on appeal because the accused omitted the empty formality of objecting later that same morning when the evidence sought to be challenged was introduced. Such a holding would make a mockery of this Court’s pronouncement that “[W]e are inclined to review a case on the merits if possible. . . .” Keel v. State, (1973) 260 Ind. 333, 295 N.E.2d 612.
Note. — Reported at 372 N.E.2d 1159.