Opinion ID: 2625753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Mistrial for Change in Expert Testimony

Text: A district judge may declare a mistrial if prejudicial conduct makes it impossible to proceed with a trial without injustice to the defendant. K.S.A. 22-3423(1)(c). Declaration of a mistrial is a matter entrusted to the district court's discretion, and the judge's choice will not be set aside without an abuse of that discretion. State v. Daniels, 278 Kan. 53, 66-67, 91 P.3d 1147, cert. denied 543 U.S. 982, 125 S.Ct. 485, 160 L.Ed.2d 361 (2004); State v. Manning, 270 Kan. 674, 696, 19 P.3d 84 (2001). An appellate court's inquiry should consider whether a limiting instruction was given, the degree of prejudice, and whether any evidence improperly admitted would affect the outcome of the trial. State v. Sanders, 263 Kan. 317, 324, 949 P.2d 1084 (1997). As before the district judge, Dixon attempts on appeal to compare his situation to that in Lewis, 238 Kan. 94, 708 P.2d 196. He also directs our attention to State v. Campbell, 29 Kan.App.2d 50, 23 P.3d 176 (2001). In Lewis, two defendants were accused of forcing their way into the home of their former drug supplier, placing a knife to his throat, and demanding money. When none was forthcoming, the victim was beaten. The altercation resulted in a cut on the victim's arm and violent separation from much of his hair. The victim reported the incident, and a search of one defendant's car revealed a large knife, a small knife, and a hunk of unattached hair. Before trial, the State informed the defendants that a KBI report showed the victim's blood on two jackets taken from the defendants but not on the large knife. At trial, defendants' theory was that they were both at the victim's apartment; that one defendant got into an argument with the victim and the victim struck him; that, while fighting, the victim cut himself on broken glass; and that the victim called police with the story of the break-in and knifing because he was spiteful and vengeful. Defendants repeatedly relied upon the absence of blood on the large knife, which, in their view, made the State's theory of the crime impossible. Defendants did not know until the KBI expert testified for the State on direct examination that she had erred when she reported no blood from the victim on the large knife. The State had not disclosed this development, and the defense moved for a mistrial. The district judge denied the motion, instead striking the expert's testimony and giving a limiting instruction to the jury. On appeal, the Lewis defendants argued that the district judge erred in denying the mistrial, and this court agreed. Noting that a judge's power to declare a mistrial must be exercised with great caution, we held that a mistrial is warranted if the damaging effect of prejudicial conduct cannot be removed by admonition and instruction. This court regarded the prosecutor's failure to disclose to the defendants and the district judge that its expert would testify in a manner materially contrary to her written report as such was prejudicial conduct; it could not be effectively cured by striking the expert's testimony or by giving a limiting instruction. Lewis, 238 Kan. at 97-99, 708 P.2d 196. In Campbell, the defendant was tried in the death of her critically ill 2-year-old child, and one of the pivotal issues involved the child's time of death. The defendant informed a police investigator that she checked on her daughter sometime after 4 a.m. and suctioned secretions from her daughter's trachea tube. The defendant also said that she checked on her daughter at 6 a.m. and that she was alive at that time. By 7 a.m., she said, her daughter was not breathing and the trachea tube had been removed. Given the defendant's commitment to this sequence of events and its timing, the defense made specific pretrial discovery requests for any evidence indicating time of death. The prosecutor deliberately failed to disclose that the daughter's pediatrician placed the time of death somewhere between 9:40 p.m. the previous evening and 3:50 a.m. on the date of death. On appeal of the defendant's convictions for, inter alia, second-degree murder, our Court of Appeals held that a prosecutor who has or knows of evidence vital to the case and who deliberately misleads defense counsel into believing that no such evidence exists is guilty of prosecutorial misconduct sufficiently serious to trigger a reversal of the defendant's convictions. Campbell, 29 Kan.App.2d at 61-62, 23 P.3d 176. Contrary to Dixon's argument, this case bears little similarity to Lewis and Campbell. First, there was no nefarious conduct by the prosecutor in this case, a lynchpin for the reversals in Lewis and Campbell. There is nothing in the record on appeal to dispute the State's assertion that it was unaware before Dixon's second trial of Lobdell's modified opinion concerning the position of the stove at the time of the blast. Moreover, unlike the situations in Lewis and Campbell, the discrepancy in the expert's testimony in this case was relatively minor. The two versions of Lobdell's testimony were not irreconcilable, as the district judge noted. The opinion drawn out at the second trial was merely an expanded  and somewhat weakened  version of the first opinion. At the first trial, Lobdell said that the stove was upright. In this trial, he said it could have either been upright or on its side. This situation is clearly distinguishable from those in Lewis, where the information was the opposite from that expected, and in Campbell, where the defense had been led to believe that information introduced by the State did not exist. Indeed, to the extent Lobdell's modification injected uncertainty into his analysis, that uncertainty undercut the State, not the defense. Dixon also fails to acknowledge that the nature of the discrepancy here could not reach the level of obvious prejudice present in Lewis and Campbell. Those cases involved testimony that was absolutely critical to the defense. Here, the State's expert, Gomez, and the expert consulted by the defense in the case all opined the stove could have been on its side or upright. There was a great deal of inconsistency on this point, even without Lobdell's change. The defense could not have been surprised by this view of the evidence. In addition, Lobdell and Gomez consistently agreed that the explosion was fueled by natural gas leaking from a fracture or break in the supply pipe. If the jury agreed with this, then it mattered little whether the stove was upright or on its side as a result of the second break-in. No participant other than Dixon was identified as touching the stove; each of the three other individuals involved in the crimes confirmed that they heard, saw, or learned that Dixon had shoved, kicked, pushed, or pulled... out the stove. Given all of the above, we hold that the district judge did not abuse his discretion in denying Dixon's motion for mistrial based on Lobdell's testimony.