Court Opinion

ID: 9852756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:36:11.332053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:34.064355
License: Public Domain

Hill, Justice,
dissenting.
This case involves hideous crimes. In affirming, this court makes law of equal stature. I dissent from Divisions 3 and 12.
1. It has long been accepted practice in this state that counsel for the parties are entitled to make an opening statement to the jury. Plaintiffs counsel makes plaintiffs opening statement before the introduction of evidence. "If the defendant’s lawyer desires, he may make a similar statement immediately after the plaintiffs statement is made, or he may wait until the plaintiff closes his testimony, and just before the defendant begins his testimony.” Ga. Prac. and Proc., § 14-1 (4th Ed.).
In Division 3, the court holds that this right of the defendant, to wait to make the defendant’s opening statement until the close of plaintiff s case, is not a right at all. The court holds that because the statutes and decisions are silent concerning the order counsel will follow in making their opening statement to the jury, the matter is within the discretion of the trial court.
Since the first trials were conducted in this state, it has been within the discretion of defense counsel to decide at which point the defendant’s opening statement should be made. It is wrong, in my view, to hold that where statutes and decisions are silent, the matter is therefore within the discretion of the trial court.
There is no statute or decision giving counsel for either side the right to make an opening statement. It follows from the majority opinion that the court may, in its discretion, deprive counsel of the right to make an opening statement altogether. It also follows from the majority opinion that the court may, in its discretion, prohibit defense counsel from making defendant’s opening statement before the introduction of plaintiffs *557evidence.
It also follows that the court may control the opening statements of counsel in civil as well as criminal cases, because the statutes and cases are silent as to both.
The statutes and cases do not provide whether the parties to the litigation shall testify first, or last. The statutes and decisions are silent as to many things, too many things, which heretofore have rested within the sound discretion of counsel.
By its holding in Division 3, the court invites the General Assembly to regulate the trial of cases by detailed statutes, with the result that trial judges will lose that discretion which is truly needed to control the conduct of those diverse cases, lawyers, and parties which come before them.
The defendant at the trial of this case was deprived of the right not to disclose the details of his defense until after the prosecution rested. By its decision, the court makes this defendant’s loss the loss of all litigants and lawyers and ultimately the trial courts.
2. I dissent also from Division 12 of the court’s opinion. The defendant was deprived of his constitutional right to be present throughout his trial. See Rogers v. United States, — U. S— (95 SC 2091, 45 LE2d 1).
During their deliberations as to punishment, the jury asked "if they could sentence the defendant to a life sentence without any possibility of parole.” It is clear that one or more jurors were not persuaded that the death penalty should be inflicted. The trial court’s ex parte response to the bailiff to be communicated to the jury was "Tell the jury I could not answer that question.” The effect of this response was to inform the jury that the court could not give a "yes” answer to the question.
The trial judge’s response to the jury, in addition to the fact that it should have been made in open court in the presence of the defendant and his counsel, should have included the admonition that the jury had been instructed as to those factors which they should and could consider in deciding whether to sentence the defendant to death or to life in prison, and that the jury should make that determination according to the instructions given them in charge and without regard to matters not referred to in *558the charge.
That is to say, the jury should have been admonished to choose between life and death according to law, without regard to extraneous matters. By being deprived of the right to be present, the defense was denied the opportunity to request the proper response to the jury’s question.
I therefore dissent.