Opinion ID: 2365144
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Prejudice and a Courtroom Disturbance

Text: Handy's second argument is that the courtroom incident involving his former teacher who was dismissed as a juror and attempted to shake Handy's hand was so prejudicial that the Superior Court abused its discretion in failing to grant him a mistrial. The State responds that the event was not significantly prejudicial to Handy and could well have affected him favorably. We conclude that there was no basis for a mistrial in this case. This Court reviews for abuse of discretion the decision of the Superior Court to deny a mistrial after a courtroom disturbance. [55] In Taylor v. State , we ruled that the Superior Court had not abused its discretion in denying a motion for a mistrial. [56] In that case the State had charged the defendant with sexually molesting the children and grandchildren of one of the witnesses. [57] During her testimony, that witness broke down crying. [58] After stepping down, she passed the defense table, continued weeping, and shouted emotionally to Taylor, You, you! [59] This Court set forth four factors to consider in a courtroom disturbance case: (i) the nature of the disturbance; (ii) the likelihood of the jury being misled or prejudiced; (iii) the closeness of the case; and (iv) any curative action taken by the Superior Court. [60] Here, the nature of the incident was minor. It certainly is less dramatic, and less directly relevant to the case, than the outburst in Taylor. The Superior Court here observed that the incident just did not strike me as being all that important, frankly, and nothing in the record suggests otherwise. Second, the likelihood of the jury being prejudiced against Handy was minimal. This is not a case like Ashley v. State. [61] In that case, a defendant was facing the death penalty for a prison stabbing; a courtroom spectator yelled out after closing arguments, Don't think he's not guilty, he stabbed me in the back 14 times. [62] In that case, the courtroom disturbance alerted the jury to a highly prejudicial prior bad act of the defendant and the emotional nature of the disturbance most likely made it impossible for them to ignore it. There is no concern about prior bad acts here. Moreover, the State rightly suggests that the jury may actually have been moved in Handy's favor by this occurrence. A former teacher of Handy's apparently thought so much of him that he was willing to offer to shake Handy's hand at a time when Handy was under scrutiny for some rather serious crimes. This may be seen by a rational juror to reflect favorably on Handy's character, not negatively. Third, this case was not close. Both victims testified, and their testimony (as well as that of the responding authorities) was consistent. Furthermore, even on a cold record Handy's testimony is incredible. It is hard to believe that, had this incident not happened, any reasonable juror would have deemed Handy's testimony credible. Finally, the trial judge did indeed give the jury a curative instruction. He instructed the jury that the incident had happened because it is the Court's policy that no one approaches the defendant during the proceedings. The court further instructed the jury that you [are] not to draw any conclusions from that particular incident one way or the other. This informed the jury of an explanation for the incident that did not reflect negatively on the defendant personally, as distinct from his status as a defendant. Thus, this instruction substantially mitigated any lingering uncertainty any rational juror may have had about the incident.