Court Opinion

ID: 9747983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:46:57.952933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:30.066309
License: Public Domain

JIM HANNAH, Chief Justice, dissenting. I respectfully dissent. The majority simply | ^ignores the objection made. First, Blanchard did not object to admission of the CD containing 1022 pornographic images.1 He objected to showing the jury a total of 1022 pornographic images. Second, Blanchard objected by arguing that the State proposed to subject the jury to so many images for the “shock value.” In other words, he asserted that the images were not being admitted to prove an element of the crimes charged but rather the large number of images was intended to prejudice the jury against him. Blanchard’s objection was “sufficiently specific to apprise the trial court concerning the particular error complained of.” Cobbs v. State, 292 Ark. 188, 191, 728 S.W.2d 957, 958 (1987). In response to the objection that the jury would be overwhelmed and prejudiced by the sheer number of pornographic images, the circuit court overruled the objection on the grounds that it would not take long to show that many images. The circuit court ruled without reviewing the images to determine what their collective impact might be. The ruling does not respond to the objection. The circuit court exercised no discretion. The failure of the circuit court to exercise discretion requires reversal and remand for that discretion to be exercised. See, e.g., Rodgers v. State, 348 Ark. 106, 71 S.W.3d 579 (2002) (discussing an allegation that discretion was not exercised and holding that reversal and remand is imposed under those |9circumstances). According to the majority, because Blanchard admitted that some of the images were relevant, in order for the circuit court to exercise its discretion, he had to specifically identify each image and indicate whether he believed it to be objectionable. This misses the point entirely. Blanchard did not object based on relevance. Even if he believed that each and every image was relevant, his objection would be the same. Blanchard argued that admission of five or ten images would be proper, and he argued that admission of one-thousand and twenty-two images would be improper. The majority’s analysis fails to address the issue presented on appeal. This case should be reversed and remanded.  . As the majority notes, when the State introduced the CD, Blanchard stated, "No objection.” Given Blanchard had just objected to showing the images to the jury, and lost the objection, it would have been unwise to oppose the introduction of the CD. He needed the CD in the record in order to obtain appellate review of whether the circuit court erred in ruling the images could be shown to the jury-