Court Opinion

ID: 9540564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:17:39.207786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:00.224492
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
STATON, P.J. —
I concur with the majority opinion, however, the waiver of summation deserves additional comment. The record and Lee’s Brief indicate that the trial judge left the courtroom immediately after making these remarks which followed rebuttal evidence by the State:
“THE COURT: Well, Gentlemen, on CCR-74-29, that’s this license business, this runner thing, there’s no such negligence proven in the evidence here and I can’t find very much essence to that, so there’s going to be a finding of not guilty there. On the other one, I’m going to listen to the tape and I’ve got to make my own conclusion about that. I think this other one is just a happenstance sort of a thing. We’ve got the testimony of Mr. Patterson and no one could believe him under oath or on his deathbed as far as I’m concerned, nor Mr. Milhem. I couldn’t believe him on his deathbed either. I’ll have to look at some other thing here.”
Whether the defense counsel was given an adequate opportunity to object under these circumstances is questionable. As Lee points out in his brief “different judges bring different well-formed personalities to the Bench and to say that counsel should have followed the Judge from the Courtroom demanding that he hear final argument or demanding that they be allowed final argument before his decision was announced —and no date for that decision was set, is to demand the impossible of counsel.”
The overwhelming weight of authority, in both federal and state courts, is that an accused is denied his right to make a defense if he is denied an opportunity to make a final argument. *22Herring v. New York (1974), 422 U.S. 853, at 859, 95 S.Ct. 2550, 45 L.Ed.2d 593. Although Casterlow v. State (1971), 256 Ind. 214, 267 N.E.2d 552, holds that the right is waived if an objection is not made, Casterlow presumes that the opportunity to objection is available. By far the better practice would be for the trial court to expressly inquire whether counsel has a final argument or summation. If the reply is negative, a very clear record of waiver exists, and there is no question of denial of an opportunity to make a summation.
NOTE — Reported at 369 N.E.2d 1083.