Court Opinion

ID: 9680753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:38:05.20581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:30.271433
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority make a shambles of the law on jury misconduct by reintroducing in the jurisprudence of this State the conflicting and complex petty considerations that should have no effect on the outcome.
Two striking examples of such irrelevant considerations injected by the majority are their consideration of the mental processes of the individual jurors and consideration of whether someone professed to know the law. The issue is what went on in the jury room, not what went on in the jurors’ heads. And wild speculation is just as harmful regardless of whether anyone professes to know whether those speculations are law or not.
It is clear from the testimony of the one juror who testified at the hearing that misconduct permeated the deliberations on punishment. The State failed to call other jurors and make a fact issue. It is sheer fiction for the majority to conjure up a supposed “fact issue” where the State neglected to make one.
I vigorously dissent.