Opinion ID: 2326772
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Posing of Hypothetical Facts

Text: The defendant also contends that the state's attorney improperly relied on facts not in evidence in posing a hypothetical to illustrate his point that the same officers who claimed not to have witnessed their fellow officers' alleged assault of Wilson undoubtedly would have seen the assault if it had been committed by Wilson against the police officers. See footnote 9 of this opinion. We are not persuaded that this argument was improper. The challenged comments carried no suggestion that the hypothetical facts were real. Moreover, the thrust of the argument merely was to highlight the state's position that several of the police officers at the scene actually had witnessed a good deal more than they were willing to acknowledge at trial because of their desire not to implicate a fellow officer. It therefore was proper argument for the state's attorney to assert that those officers would have seen the alleged assault had it been committed by a civilian and not another police officer or police officers.