Opinion ID: 2203238
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Crying During the Opening Argument

Text: The prosecutor opened the trial with a speech, foreshadowing what he hoped to show the jury with his evidence. In a very matter-of-fact way, he related whom he would call and what they would say until he reached the point of reconstructing the shooting. At that point, the prosecutor said: On Fairview approximately three houses up from Roselawn live the Wolvertons, a young family. They have approximately a 13 year old boy, nicknamed Chip Wolverton. He and his mother are up in his bedroom. That bedroom overlooks the street of Fairview, crossed on to Draper. They as well as all the other neighbors will testify, I suspect, that they hear the siren from some ways off. The sirens are approaching their particular area. Some of them will testify to the fact that they will hear the screeching of the turn, the fact of the first car making the turn and going down into the ditch. Mrs. Wolverton, Ann Wolverton, and Chip Wolverton will testify to the fact that they looked out the window based upon what they hear. It is approximately again 9:15 P.M. being May 16. It's at the very end of the twilight hours, just getting to its darkest stage. They look out. They see the car with its headlights shining back up into the road. The squad car is there. The police officer, Officer Russell, the 28 year old police officer having been on the force approximately one year, formerly having done employment as a security guard at International Harvester, down in another mid-western state, a young man who grew up in northern Minnesota area, his parents live there, a married man with a child  THE COURT: Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to recess for a few moments here.    The record should reflect that the Court is now in Chambers, the Court having taken a short recess at the request of Mr. Tuohy. The recess was requested because the prosecutor became choked up. Whether he actually wept is not in the record. Even the defense attorney agreed in chambers that the incident was legitimate and accidental. If there was any prejudice, the prosecutor did his best to eliminate it by asking for a recess. How much effect this had on the jury is simply impossible to tell from reading the transcript. The trial judge, who was in the best position to judge, did not feel sufficient prejudice inured to warrant a mistrial. No clear abuse of discretion appears on the record. See Brennan v. United States, 240 F.2d 253 (8th Cir.1957), cert. denied, 353 U.S. 931, 77 S.Ct. 718, 1 L.Ed.2d 723 (1957) (trial court has duty to supervise, direct, and control proceedings and will not be reversed absent a clear abuse of discretion). The trial court was within its discretion in not granting the mistrial. The defense also argues that the subject matter, the victim's personal life, was not a proper subject for the opening statement. While it is true that the quality or personal details of the victim's life are not strictly relevant to the issue of who murdered the victim, it would seem to tie unduly the hands of the prosecutor to prohibit any mention of the victim's life. The victim was not just bones and sinews covered with flesh, but was imbued with the spark of life. The prosecution has some leeway to show that spark and present the victim as a human being as long as it is not an attempt to invoke any undue sympathy or inflame the jury's passions. State v. Plan, 316 N.W.2d 727, 728 (Minn.1982). The prosecutor's speech was not such an attempt.