Court Opinion

ID: 9811931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:33:26.187756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:58.949878
License: Public Domain

Walkee, J.,
concurring: I joined Justice Connor in the dissenting’ opinion he-filed in S. v. Hodge, 142 N. C., 676, and adhere to the views therein expressed, as applied to the facts of that ease, but I think this case differs from that in the essential respect that here the disobedience of the witness to the order of the judge was caused by the fault of the defendant, whereas in S. v. Hodge this was not the fact. It is suggested by Justice Gonnor, in S. v. Hodge, that this would make a difference, and in such a case the general rule would not be followed, and authorities are cited, and quoted from, to show how the rule is thus qualified.
Justice Connor states, in the Hodge case, quoting from Elliott on Evidence, see. 802: “While there is some conflict among the authorities whether a witness remaining in the court room should be permitted to give testimony, it is held in some jurisdictions that ‘where a party is without fault, and a witness disobeys an order for exclusion, the party ought not to be deprived of the testimony of his witness. The latter view would seem to be the better — that is, if the party calling the witness had been guilty of no misconduct, a judge ought not to reject him. So, then in case of refusal by or failure of a witness to leave the room, the proper remedy would seem to be for the court to admit his testimony and punish the witness for contempt of court. Among many other authorities cited to sustain this proposition is S. v. Sparrow, supra. In this connection it may be well to note that the case cited in the opinion of Jackson v. State, 14 Ind., 327, came under review by the same Court in S. v. Thomas, 111 Ind., 516, Judge Elliott saying: ‘Where a party is without fault, and a witness disobeys an order directing a separation of witnesses, the party shall not be denied the right of having the witness testify, but the conduct of the witness may go to the jury upon the question of his credibility/ citing Taylor on Evidence. ‘But it seems to be now settled that the judge has no right to reject the witness on this ground, however much his willful disobedience of the order may lessen the value of his evidence/ also citing 2 Phil. Ex., 744, saying: ‘But it may now be considered as settled that the circumstance of a witness having remained in court in disobedience to an order of withdrawal is not a ground for rejecting his evidence, and that it merely affords matter of observation/ Thomas' case was reaffirmed in Taylor v. State, 130 Ind., 66.”
Following the trend of authority on this question, I am of the opinion that the dissent in the Hodge case, which received my concurrence, *293sbould not apply here, because tbis case comes within the exception to the rule that a party who calls a witness who has. disobeyed the order of the judge excluding him from the court room must be without fault himself in order to entitle him to demand that the witness be examined and his testimony heard in his behalf, the general rule being that he has the right to swear and examine a witness, and the foregoing authorities showing the qualification of it. It appears in this record that an order was made to exclude the witnesses from the court room, and that the witness in question, Dr. Pope, was subpoenaed after the order was made and the witnesses had retired, and after the subpoena was served upon him he entered the court room and stayed there during the taking of the testimony of one of the witnesses. It does not appear that when he was subpoenaed he was informed by the defendant of the order of the court or in any way apprised of the fact that all the witnesses were directed by the court to leave and remain away from the court room during the trial or during the taking of the testimony. If this had been done, we have no doubt that the witness in question would have complied with the order, and it was owing entirely to the fault of the defendant that the order of the court was not brought to his attention. It is not found as a fact in the case that he was intentionally allowed to enter the court room, nor do I think that it is necessary that such a fact should have been found. It is sufficient, under the foregoing authorities, that his entering and remaining in the court room were due to the fault of the defendant. We have held in numerous cases that a person may waive his constitutional rights either by not claiming or insisting upon them (Driller Co. v. Worth, 117 N. C., at p. 515, and cases cited in the annotated edition), or he may waive them by such conduct during the course of the trial as would be inconsistent with any assertion of them, as will appear by the above-cited case and those which have approved it. It may be that the defendant did not know of the presence of the witness in the court room, and very probably that is the case, but he was there, so far as appears, by the fault of the defendant in not giving him proper notice of the previous order made by the judge. Where a party is not in fault, I still adhere to the rule as laid down by Justice Connor in the Hodge case, and to which I gave my assent at the time. I think it proper to say this much, in order to show the difference between the Hodge case and the case at bar, for in the former the defendant was not at fault, while in this case there is evidence sufficient to justify the inference that the presence of the witness was due to the fault or omission of the defendant; and as there is a presumption that the ruling of the court below is correct, if the defendant was not in fault, the fact should have been shown by him. As the case now stands, without any finding of *294facts by tbe court in reference to tbis matter, we must assume that bis Honor based bis ruling upon tbe fact that tbe defendant was not entitled to be beard through bis witness, because be was not without fault in tbe premises.