State v. Coleman , 65 N.C. App. 23 ( 1983 )

Judge Phillips

concurring.

Though I agree that no prejudicial legal error was committed during the course of the trial and that another trial would almost certainly end as this one did, I see no semblance of an excuse for the trial judge berating defendant’s lawyer in open court before the panel of jurors from which those who decided his case were selected. Whether the judge had cause for being upset with the lawyer is beside the point; the judge’s grievance, according to his own remarks, did not develop before the jury, but had existed for some time, and should have been addressed in chambers, out of the panel’s presence. The lawyer was not in court for himself; he was there only to act for defendant and his other clients. By gratuitously demeaning the lawyer, the judge also demeaned the defendant to some extent. Which is why trial judges should refrain from airing their complaints against lawyers in the presence of jurors the lawyers will soon be contending before. If the contest between the State and defendant had been closer, I would find it difficult, indeed, not to find prejudicial error.