Ostlund v. State

I agree that Ostlund’s trial should have been bifurcated, but I am writing separately to more fully explain our stand on this issue.

Judge Coats begins his substantive discussion of the bifurcation issue with a quotation from State v. McLaughlin.1 In this passage from McLaughlin, this court acknowledged that a trial judge has “broad discretion” when formulating the rules that will govern the admission of evidence of a defendant’s prior convictions.2 But a dozen paragraphs later, Judge Coats concludes that Ostlund is entitled to a new trial because his trial judge did not follow a procedure…