Opinion ID: 2320134
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prosecutor's Statement During Closing Argument

Text: The defendant's second contention is that the trial justice erred in overruling defense counsel's objection to a comment made during the prosecutor's closing argument. Defense counsel argued that the comment in question was prejudicial because it implied that a defense witness had lied during her testimony at trial. We do not reach the merits of this argument because defendant failed to properly preserve the issue for appellate review. A defendant is required to make a request for cautionary instructions or move for a mistrial in order to preserve for review by this Court a question concerning alleged prejudicial error in a closing argument; a mere objection is insufficient. State v. Horton, 871 A.2d 959, 964 (R.I. 2005). A defendant need not request a cautionary instruction or move for a mistrial to preserve such an issue for appeal, however, if the request for cautionary instructions would have been futile or the attempt to cure the prejudice would have been ineffective. Id. Similarly, an exception to the rule that a mere objection is insufficient exists when a constitutional right is implicated and each of the following three criteria is satisfied: (a) the alleged error consists of more than harmless error; (b) the record permits a determination of the issue; and (c) counsel's failure to raise the issue at trial stemmed from ignorance of a novel rule of law about which he or she could not reasonably have known at the time of trial. Id. at 964-65. In this case, the prosecuting attorney, referring to defense witness Sheena Rodrigues, remarked during the closing argument: [O]bviously she's going to talk to the Defendant about it to get her story straight. Defense counsel objected to this remark, and the court overruled the objection. But defense counsel neither requested a cautionary instruction nor moved for a mistrial, and there is no indication in the record that any of the instances alluded to in Horton in which compliance with the rule is not required would be applicable in this case. Accordingly, the defendant has not properly preserved this issue for appeal, and therefore we will not reach the merits of this argument.