Court Opinion

ID: 9547791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:52:30.6604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:06.433696
License: Public Domain

GRAY, Justice
(concurring).
I concur in the result; however, I am unable to accept the proposition that counsel for the defendant consciously and intentionally waived the constitutional point of his premature general objection to a line of testimony rather cleverly designed by the prosecutor to bring out the arrest made on November 23, 1968, and the resulting charge of possession of marijuana. The state of the record leads me to believe that counsel was under the misapprehension that the trial judge had unqualifiedly ruled against him on that particular point. As shown by the majority opinion, no such ruling was ever made and thus in order to preserve the point on appeal counsel under many previous pronouncements by this court was duty bound to make an appropriate objection when the critical question was asked or to have moved to strike the answer volunteered by the defendant. Of course, present counsel for the defendant suggests that the incident was so fundamentally and basically erroneous that the omission should be disregarded, but as I view it the circumstances of this case are such that we are not warranted in acting upon our own motion.