Opinion ID: 787126
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pre-Trial and Trial

Text: 6 On July 25, 1993, petitioner was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Shawn Stalworth, who had been shot to death earlier that day as he was leaving his house in Battle Creek, Michigan. Following his arrest, petitioner was confined in a local jail, where he allegedly confessed to another inmate, Lorenzo Brand (Brand), that he had committed the murder. Brand testified to this confession at petitioner's preliminary hearing. At petitioner's jury trial, the prosecutor, during his opening statement, stated, in pertinent part: 7 Defendant was arrested. He was charged. He was arraigned. He was taken to the City of Battle Creek lockup, not the county jail, but the lockup pending transfer, moving him over here. While he was there[,] there was another person in the lockup. He goes, hey, my mom just saw you on a videotape.... He said my mom told me she just saw a person and they accused him of homicide. You kill that man? What did he say? Yep, yep. 8 At the close of the state's case, the prosecutor informed the court that the state would not call Brand as a witness because it had been unable to locate him. The prosecutor admitted that he did not believe that the state's efforts to locate Brand met with the due diligence required under Michigan case law for the admission of preliminary examination testimony. The trial court agreed and declined to admit the testimony. Despite the prosecutor's failure to produce Brand, defense counsel neither objected to nor requested a mistrial based upon the prosecutor's opening statement relaying that confession. Further, defense counsel never mentioned the prosecutor's statement regarding petitioner's alleged confession in his opening statement, which he had reserved until the close of the prosecution's case. Neither defense counsel nor the prosecutor mentioned the alleged confession in closing arguments. 9 The trial court gave the jury the customary instruction that [t]he lawyers' statements and arguments are not evidence, and further instructed: 10 Lorenzo Brand is a missing witness whose appearance was the responsibility of the [p]rosecution. You may infer that the witness' testimony would have not been favorable to the [p]rosecution's case. 11 However, because the prosecutor's opening statement never named the jail inmate to whom petitioner allegedly confessed, and because no mention was ever made before the jury that Brand was that inmate, the jury had no knowledge with which to tie the trial court's Brand instruction to the prosecutor's opening statement regarding the alleged confession. 2 Moreover, immediately after this instruction, the district court gave an instruction as to when the jury could properly consider an unrelated out-of-court statement made by petitioner that had been admitted into evidence. 12 The jury convicted petitioner of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The trial court sentenced petitioner to life imprisonment without parole on the murder conviction and to two years' imprisonment on the felony-firearm conviction.