Opinion ID: 2361099
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The Fingerprint Evidence Issue

Text: Price argues that because a reasonable doubt may be present due to the government's failure to present fingerprint evidence, the trial court erred in not allowing him to comment on the lack of fingerprint evidence during his opening and closing statements. He relies on Hughes v. United States, 633 A.2d 851 (D.C.1993). [8] We emphasized in Hughes that where there were no supporting facts in evidence, a defendant could not argue that if fingerprint evidence had been obtained, it would favor the defendant. Id. at 852. We do not interpret Hughes as precluding defense counsel from commenting on the absence of fingerprint evidence during opening statement. Nor do we interpret the trial court's ruling in this case as preventing Price from introducing testimony related to the absence of fingerprint evidence. Significantly, Price made no effort to revisit the fingerprint issue during trial. We see nothing in the record on appeal to support Price's assertion that the trial court appears to have excluded fingerprint evidence on relevancy grounds. [9] Indeed, this argument was not made in the trial court. Thus, because there were no facts in evidence by the close of testimony which related to the fingerprint issue, comment on the absence of such evidence during defense counsel's closing argument would have been improper. Hughes, supra . Accordingly, on the record before us, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in preventing defense counsel from commenting on the absence of fingerprint evidence during closing argument. See Wright v. United States, 508 A.2d 915, 919 (D.C.1986) (Unquestionably, the trial court has `discretion' to regulate the scope and extent of an opening statement).