# Ex Parte Hodges

> Supreme Court of Alabama · March 14, 2003 · 856 So. 2d 936

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9938239

## Case

- **Full name:** Ex Parte Melvin G. Hodges.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Alabama
- **Decided:** March 14, 2003
- **Citations:** 856 So. 2d 936; 2003 WL 1145451
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Johnstone
- **Judges:** Johnstone, Lyons
- **Cited by:** 85 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9938239

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- recognizing that plain error exists only if failure to recognize the- error would ‘seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judicial proceedings,’ and that the plain-error doc *775 trine is to be ‘used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of…
- recognizing that plain eiTor exists only if failure to récog-nize the error would ‘seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judiciál proceedings,’ and' that the plain-error doctrine is to be ‘used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of just…
- recognizing that plain error exists only if failure to recognize the error would ‘seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judicial proceedings,’ and that the plain-error doctrine is to be ‘used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justic…
- stating that plain error exists only if failure to recognize the error would "seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the judicial proceedings," and that the plain-error doctrine is to be "used sparingly, solely in those circumstances in which a miscarriage of justice wo…

## Opinion text

This Court granted the writ of certiorari to review only the two issues addressed by the main opinion. Because the main opinion has correctly addressed both of those issues, I concur fully.
I do not want my concurrence to be misconstrued, however, as any expression of approval of what I regard as some dicta in the opinion by the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case, Hodges v. State , 856 So.2d 875 , 894 (Ala.Crim.App. 2001) (opinion on return to remand) — a number of statements to the effect that any error by the trial court in denying the defendant's challenges of venirepersons for cause was later rendered harmless by the defendant's exercising peremptory challenges to keep these same venirepersons off the jury. I adhere to the views I expressed, and I insist on the authorities I cited, in my special writing in Bethea v. Springhill Memorial Hospital , 833 So.2d 1 , 9-11 (Ala. 2002), for the proposition that the erroneous denial of a valid challenge for cause is reversible error. The reason that the denials of defendant's challenges for cause in the case now before us are not reversible is that those denials were not erroneous.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9938239. Public record. Not legal advice.