Opinion ID: 1711335
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: did the trial court err in refusing to grant a mistrial after allowing the testimony of agent shelbourn regarding the guilty pleas and guilty verdicts of co-defendants?

Text: ¶ 12. Generally, when defense counsel does not object to a statement by a prosecutor made during the course of trial, the defendant is procedurally barred from raising the prejudicial nature of the statement as grounds for appeal. See, e.g., Blue v. State, 674 So.2d 1184, 1191 (Miss. 1996) (citing Foster v. State, 639 So.2d 1263, 1270 (Miss.1994)). An objection on constitutional grounds must be raised at trial to be considered on appeal. Fleming v. State, 604 So.2d 280, 292 (Miss.1992). One exception to this rule is that a statement not objected to at trial may be looked at by the appellate court if the statement fundamentally prevented the defendant from receiving a fair trial. See Johns v. State, 592 Sc.2d 86, 91 (Miss.1991). For example, if a testifying co-defendant reveals to the jury that he or she has already been convicted for the same crime as the defendant, there is a presumption that the jury is influenced toward finding the defendant guilty; this denies the defendant a fundamentally fair trial. See id. This rule is limited to information regarding a co-defendant or co-conspirator's convictions, as the intent is to prevent the jury from relying on another's jury's findings of fact. However, a trial judge may alleviate the potential damage of such kinds of testimony by addressing the statement with the jury. See Hoops v. State, 681 So.2d 521, 528 (Miss.1996). This Court has held that the trial court's instruction to the jury to disregard such testimony is sufficient to prevent prejudice. See Baine v. State, 604 So.2d 249, 257 (Miss.1992); Dennis v. State, 555 So.2d 679, 682-83 (Miss.1989). The decision to grant a mistrial because of potentially damaging statements is left to the discretion of the trial judge, and the trial judge must grant a mistrial if he believes that certain testimony is so damaging that his instructions to the jury could not adequately temper the testimony's effects. See Hoops, 681 So.2d at 528. ¶ 13. Sullivan alleges that the testimony of Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Agent Tony Shelbourn prejudiced the jury because of his statements made regarding Sullivan's co-defendants. The statements in question occurred as follows (Shelbourn is responding to the prosecutor): Q. And why was it a successful investigation? A. Well, we did our job, sir. We took a lot of drugs off the street, put a lot of people in jail, a lot of people pled guilty and other people have been found guilty, sir. Drugs Q. Were you about to-I apologize. A. In addition, we were able to identify Karlton Bradley's source of cocaine and put him in prison, identify his source of LSD and get a conviction on him; we identified his source of amphetamine, and we're in trial on that, so we took out the retail side of the house as well as the wholesale side of the house, sir. ¶ 14. Sullivan does not address the procedural bar that exists because defense counsel failed to object to the either the question or the answer. Unfortunately, for Sullivan the rule is that a failure to object bars Sullivan from raising the issue on appeal. Defense counsel did not act until a jury break, at which time he asked the court to grant a mistrial in light of the information. The court refused to grant a mistrial, informed the defense counsel that he would have recognized an objection if one had been made, and offered to instruct the jury to disregard the statement. The defense refused the instruction, claiming that it would draw attention to the guilty verdicts. Given Sullivan's failure to object and his refusal to accept a jury instruction, he cannot argue that the court did not recognize the his right to object to the statement. However, Sullivan does not allege that the statement prevented him from receiving a fundamentally fair trial, and the magnitude of the potential harmfulness of the statement was not so great that it was clearly detrimental to the impartiality of the jury. Therefore, this issue is without merit.