Court Opinion

ID: 9694556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:46:41.444795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:03.349595
License: Public Domain

McDERMOTT, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the opinion of the Majority but feel compelled to offer the following comments.
The dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Cappy is a lachrymose call to give the appellant what was not denied. He was not denied a fair trial, his presence at his trial and sentence, or his right to appeal. Rather Mr. Justice Cappy insists on his “American” right to absent himself from his trial and hold it when he is caught and only then, “even if it is 25 years later.”
No society on earth offers more than we do to preserve and protect the rights of those held for trial. It is more than simple discourtesy not to attend. It is an anarchical contempt of everything that so many have died to preserve. The thinking behind the scenario offered of “Jurors threatened with bodily harm — at gunpoint!!! to render a guilty verdict” has an unworldly tinge. If such thinking is prologue to what can be expected, we should all escape before it’s too late.