Opinion ID: 1516934
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Reading back testimony to the jury

Text: After deliberating for about two hours, the jury requested that the prosecutrix's testimony regarding the sequence of events be read back to them. [15] The presiding justice denied the jury's request on the ground that granting it would require rereading most of the prosecutrix's extensive testimony. The justice asked the jury to narrow its request. The jury retired for further deliberations and made no further request on this point. Defendant claims that the jury misunderstood the issue of whether there had been consensual sexual contact before Giglio's use of force and threats of force. Thinking that there had been, the jury returned a verdict of Class B rape and gross sexual misconduct, rather than Class A. In fact, argues defendant, the testimony did not support any such finding, and the jurors were critically misled by the justice's refusal to let them listen to a reading of the prosecutrix's testimony. Whether testimony shall be read back to the jury is within the discretion of the trial justice. State v. MacDonald, Me., 382 A.2d 553, 554 (1978). In this instance the justice did not abuse his discretion. The jury's request was indeed extremely broad. The justice did not refuse to let any testimony at all be read back; rather, he asked the jury to narrow its request. If the jurors were indeed unsure on the point of whether the force and threats of force preceded or followed the first sexual contacts, they could have said so and the relevant portion of the testimony could have been searched for. Had the jury so narrowed its request, the issue on appeal would be different. As the case stands, the jury's original request encompassed virtually the entire testimony of the prosecutrix. The attendant circumstances did not manifest how this reading would materially assist the jury in its deliberations. The justice did not abuse his discretion in asking the jury to narrow its request, nor in declining to grant it in its unnarrowed form.