Court Opinion

ID: 9775288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:53:10.35948+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:24.662108
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, dissenting. This case should be affirmed. In the first place, in denying appellant’s motion for a mistrial the court promptly and firmly instructed the jury to disregard the question. We have repeatedly held that mistrial is an extreme remedy and the wide latitude given the trial court in such matters will not be reversed except in cases of manifest abuse and prejudice. Brown & Bettis v. State, 259 Ark. 464, 534 S.W. 2d 207 (1976). In Limber v. State, 264 Ark. 479, 572 S.W. 2d 402 (1978), we said that mistrial is “a drastic remedy to be resorted to ONLY WHEN THE PREJUDICE IS SO GREAT that it cannot be removed by an admonition to the jury.” [Emphasis supplied.] This case decidedly fails such a test. There was no material prejudice here. As the majority opinion points out, the predilection of the appellant to commit similar acts had already been brought out by the appellant himself, in the testimony of Dr. Pierre Dwyer, in response to questions from counsel for appellant. How, then, can he convincingly argue that he was prejudiced by the prosecutor’s unanswered question to Dr. Dwyer on the same point, improper though it may have been? I view the trial court’s immediate and assertive admonition to the jury to disregard the question, coupled with the explanation to them that the matter had nothing to do with the issue before them, to have cured whatever minimal prejudice might inhere to the question. We have held, correctly, that where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming, as in this case, and the error harmless, as in this case, reversal is not warranted. Pace v. State, 265 Ark. 712, 580 S.W. 2d 689 (1979). See also, Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250 (1969). To burden the county, the trial court, the prosecutor, and the witnesses with another trial of this case on the slender ground relied on serves neither the ends of justice nor any useful purpose. I would affirm. Chief Justice Adkisson joins in this dissent.