determining that the defendant failed to establish prejudicial error in his conviction for first-degree murder based on the trial court’s allowing the jury to take evidence into the jury room over his objection, including -5- STATE V. MUMMA Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part photographs that showed “the overall view of the interior of the victim’s trailer and the location of the body, a metal fragment found on the floor, and the false teeth found near the body”
How later courts described this case
- determining that the defendant failed to establish prejudicial error in his conviction for first-degree murder based on the trial court’s allowing the jury to take evidence into the jury room over his objection, including -5- STATE V. MUMMA Earls, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part photographs that showed “the overall view of the interior of the victim’s trailer and the location of the body, a metal fragment found on the floor, and the false teeth found near the body”
- determining that the defendant had not met his burden of showing prejudice pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-1443(a) when “[t]he photographs in question had been previously admitted into evidence and shown to the jury”; the trial court could, in its discretion, have allowed the jury to examine the photographs “closely and at length in the courtroom” pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-1233(a); and “[o]ther evidence . . . linking the murder with the defendant was circumstantial, but compelling”
- concluding that because the information was “inherently reliable” and “reasonably relied upon” by other experts in the field there could be no violation of the Confrontation Clause (internal citations omitted)
- holding not prejudicial error to allow photographs to go into the jury room over defendant’s objection, in part because it was within court’s discretion to permit the jury to reexamine the pictures at length in the courtroom
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*119 Justice MARTIN
concurring.
Except as herein set out, I concur in the well reasoned majority opinion and in the result reached. With respect to the ruling of the trial judge allowing the jury to take certain exhibits to the jury room, counsel did not brief or argue the constitutionality of N.C.G.S. 15A-1233(b). However, upon considering that issue, I find the statute constitutionally suspect as a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers. N.C. Const, art. I, § 6 and art. IV, § 1. The legislature cannot control the actions of the courts over what exhibits, properly admitted, can be carried by the jury into its jury room during its deliberations. Such action by the legislature is an unconstitutional intrusion and interference with the internal workings of the trial of a jury case. What evidence should or should not be taken to the jury room is a matter peculiarly within the knowledge and discretion of the trial judge on a case by case basis. The trial judge’s duty to seek after justice should not be hampered by requirements that evidence cannot be taken into the jury room except by consent of all counsel. It is the duty and responsibility of the trial judge to supervise and control a trial in order that injustice to any party may be prevented. State v. Spaulding, 288 N.C. 397 , 219 S.E. 2d 178 (1975), vacated on other grounds, 428 U.S. 904 , 49 L.Ed. 2d 1210 (1976). To this end the court has broad discretionary powers.
I repeat my views concerning the extension of the plain error doctrine to evidentiary matters. State v. Black, 308 N.C. 736 , 303 S.E. 2d 804 (1983) (Martin, J., concurring).