State v. Ashe

EXUM, Justice.

The dispositive question presented is whether the trial court committed reversible error in denying a request to review portions of the testimony, made by the jury foreman after deliberations began, without requiring that all jurors be present to hear the court’s response. We conclude that it did and remand the case for a new trial.

I

In the evening of 21 August 1974, officers from the Cherokee County Sheriffs Department discovered Charles Clinton Odom dead in the bedroom of his mobile home. An autopsy revealed that Odom died as a result of one or more blows to the head with a…