Court Opinion

ID: 9648972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:39:34.995483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:23.942802
License: Public Domain

J. Fred Jones, Justice, dissenting. I would affirm the convictions in this case. The jury had no way of knowing whether Purifoy was employed by the appellants or appointed by the court. Certainly it would appear that the trial judge might have sent the attorney to jail and postponed the trial until he sobered up, but the trial judge was in a better position to view the situation as the events occurred in the courtroom than we are from the record of the events as they appear on the printed page. The appellants were apprehended halfway through the wall of a vault inside a bank building. They were surrounded by cutting torches and other paraphernalia of the burglary profession including a pistol found inside the hole partially cut through the wall of the vault. There is nothing in the record to indicate that the appellants were b$ow the average in mentality, with the possible exception that they were satisfied with their attorney’s representation. Certainly if a mistrial had been declared and counsel had subsequently been appointed to represent them, the appellants would have had good cause to complain of the denial of their , right to the services of employed counsel. With nothing in the record to indicate otherwise, I am willing to assume that the appellants were capable of measuring the effect their counsel’s conduct was having on the jury. If the effect of their attorney’s conduct resulted in disdain for the attorney rather than sympathy for the appellants, that is a chance the appellants affirmatively took and insisted upon. The trial judge was in a much better position than we are in evaluating all the circumstances surrounding the trial of this case, including the intelligence of the appellants and their reasoning in proceeding in the trial with Purifoy as their attorney. I would affirm.