Court Opinion

ID: 9863229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:16:19.752871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:38:58.257465
License: Public Domain

Melvin Mayfield, Chief Judge, dissenting. I agree that the trial court erred but I think the majority has chosen the wrong thing as error. The error, in my opinion, occurred when the court limited defense counsel to fifteen minutes for jury argument. I strongly support the proposition that a trial judge must have a large degree of discretion in managing and controlling the proceedings at a trial, but I am also firm in the belief that this means “that sound judicial discretion the exercise of which is a matter of review.” Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. Murphy, 74 Ark. 256, 259, 85 S.W. 428 (1905). Here, the fifteen-minute limitation, in my judgment, was not the exercise of sound judicial discretion. I also disagree with the majority opinion’s assertion that the appellant was required to demonstrate prejudice by placing in the record what “he was unable to tell the jury as a result of the court’s ruling.” How can an artist show us the picture he was not allowed to paint? In one of the few in-depth considerations of judicial discretion, Rosenberg, Judicial Discretion of the Trial Court, Viewed From Above, 22 Syracuse L. Rev. 635, 665 (1971), it is said, “a trial judge relying upon discretionary power should place on record the circumstances and factors that were crucial to his determination.” The court here asked how much time the attorneys wanted for closing argument. The prosecuting attorney asked for fifteen minutes and defense counsel wanted “unlimited time.” The judge’s only explanation of his selection of the fifteen-minute period was: Phil, the court heard five witnesses all of whom testified to the same set of circumstances. There wasn’t a hill of beans difference in any of the way the witnesses said it happened. When you tell it one time, you wipe out all the witnesses, and the rest of your case is character witnesses. I believe much more was involved than simply rehashing what the witnesses to the “fight” said happened. In the first place the trial judge was wrong if he thought only five witnesses testified to what occurred. There were actually seven such witnesses. In all, a total of fourteen witnesses testified, including a doctor who performed surgery on Emmet Don Clark. The testimony covers 173 legal-size pages. The trial started at 9:00 a.m. and the jury retired to consider its verdict at 4:25 p.m. The court gave the jury 24 instructions and 7 verdict forms. The instructions cover 9 legal pages and the verdict forms use 3 more pages. The defendant could have received 20 years imprisonment and a $15,000.00 fine on each charge. Of course, it was within the court’s discretion to refuse the appellant’s request for “unlimited time” for jury argument, but the above circumstances demonstrate to me that the exercise of sound judicial discretion required more than an agreement to the limit suggested by the prosecuting attorney based upon the trial court’s perception that “there wasn’t a hill of beans difference in any of the way the witnesses said it happened.” Thus, I would reverse the convictions and remand on both charges, but I would not reverse the conviction of battery on Boyce on the basis that he was not caused “substantial pain.” To put that charge in perspective it should be noted that battery in the first degree comprehends life-endangering conduct, second degree punishes conduct resulting in serious physical injury, and third degree requires only physical injury which is defined as “the impairment of physical condition or the infliction of substantial pain.” In addition to the evidence set out in the majority opinion, Boyce testified that the appellant “cut me on the shoulder”; appellant himself said that Boyce received “a small nick across the arm”; and the witness Harrison testified that the cut brought blood. I submit that whether this cut caused “substantial pain” was a question for the jury. In The Scott-Burr Stores Corp. v. Foster, 197 Ark. 232, 242, 122 S.W.2d 165 (1938), the court said that many questions and answers about the pain and suffering caused by injuries are “unnecessary attempts at proof of facts known by everyone who understands the extent of injuries.” And, after all, in the instant case the trial court instructed the jury that they were not required to set aside their common knowledge, but had a right to consider all the evidence in the light of their own observations and experiences in the affairs of life. I would let them do that. Not only is it proper under the law but I am satisfied the jury knew as much about whether the cut caused Boyce “substantial pain” as this court does. Cloninger and Corbin, JJ., join in this dissent with regard to the limitation of the jury argument.