Court Opinion

ID: 9858200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:18:16.589364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:28.603487
License: Public Domain

BARHAM, Justice
(concurring).
This court has again resorted to the federal harmless error doctrine, asking: “ * * * after a review of the testimony as a whole, can it be said that introduction of evidence concerning the December 21st lineup was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt? We have carefully considered the evidence and conclude that it was.”
I have no argument to make against the federal harmless error doctrine. However, if we are to employ this doctrine, which requires a review of the entire transcript to determine whether there is other independent untainted evidence which will supplant the evidence admitted in error, then we must afford a procedural device for reviewing the total record in every case, or we do not equally apply the law. See my dissents in State v. Hopper, 253 La. 439, 218 So.2d 551 (1969), and State v. Anderson, 254 La. 1107, 229 So.2d 329 (1969); see also my concurring opinion in State v. McGregor, 257 La. 956, 244 So.2d 846 (1971).
*851Our law does not require a transcript of testimony in every case (at least outside the Parish of Orleans, and this in itself appears to be a denial of equal protection), and therefore those who have not reserved and perfected bills which require the entire transcript are afforded different review for harmless error from others, such as the defendants in this case, who have attached the complete record under the bill of exception reserved to the overruling of their motion for new trial. Those with a complete transcript of testimony, such as these defendants, are subjected to a more onerous harmless error doctrine than is the appellant with a meager record.
This court continually writes opinions which require strict compliance with its interpretation of the requirement for perfected bills of exception so as to limit review, which might favorably affect a defendant if total review were had. Here, in order to maintain a conviction under harmless error, it extends review to the entire record of a proceeding, both fact and law. We do not extend the benefits of such liberal review to all parties. I believe this court has the power to correct both errors. First, we could provide for a review of properly reserved bills when the record is before us and our attention is directed to them although there is some technical flaw in the perfected formal bill of exception. Second, we could judicially mandate that a full transcript of testimony be a part of every appellate record as an equal protection device if we are going to look for harmless error based upon review of the entirety of the evidence to see whether there is sufficient untainted evidence to sustain the conviction. At least the Legislature should address itself to this problem in the absence of affirmative steps by this court to afford relief.
I respectfully concur.