Opinion ID: 2199758
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: Summation references to the confessions.

Text: Alleged improper remarks by the State and by counsel for Rodriguez were objected to at the trial by the defendant Rios. They were principally interpretations of various statements and confessions made by Vega tending to implicate the complaining defendant in certain respects. They may have been extended slightly from their factual basis but not to the degree where they proved to be so prejudicial as to require a reversal. Appellate courts have been prone to disregard these aberrations where the trial court exerted corrective measures to overcome prejudicial effects, and here the court had already on eight different occasions specifically instructed the jury in reference to the very same topic and apparently vigorously and fully enough to satisfy counsel. Nevertheless, it again admonished the jury, now for the ninth time, saying: In the consideration of alleged statements of Rios and Vega, as I have cautioned you many times during the trial and now instruct you, the statement made by any defendant is only evidential as to what he says he himself did or said, not against any of the other defendants as to what he said such other defendant or defendants who didn't make the confession did or said. I think we must by now understand each other on this point. The obligations and privileges and the extent and limitations of the remarks of the State's representative in summation have been commented upon and determined with much clarity in State v. Vaszorich, 13 N.J. 99, 119 (1953), and State v. Bogen, 13 N.J. 137, 139 (1953). Conduct beyond the boundaries there established may well result in reversal. The invasion here, if any, upon the constitutional rights of the defendants was not of such a character as to require such action.