Court Opinion

ID: 9636761
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:42:06.60596+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:49.017477
License: Public Domain

GOODRICH, Circuit Judge
(dissenting in part).
While agreeing that there must be a reversal, it seems to me unfortunate that one ground of it be the charge of the Trial Judge on character testimony. It seems pretty obvious that what the Judge was doing was telling the jury a perfectly common sense proposition to the effect that if there is sufficient direct testimony proving that a particular man committed a particular offense, the fact that that man has a good reputation may become unimportant. I cannot think that what was said to the jury misled them in any way. And I do think that this Court is building up such a series of fine-line requirements and distinctions in connection with this character rule that soon a Trial Judge will find himself free from reversal only if he copies out and reads to the jury verbatim the last pronouncement of this Court on the subject. A line of decisions which tends to require the stereotyping of instructions to juries is unfortunate.