Opinion ID: 1040404
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Improper Comment by State Witness

Text: {22} Defendant argues that the district court improperly denied his motion for mistrial because the State’s bloodstain pattern expert impermissibly referred to seeing “brain matter” on Defendant’s shoes in violation of a pretrial order in limine and that the brain matter remark was so prejudicial it could not be cured by the judge’s limiting instruction. “We review a trial court’s denial of a motion for mistrial under an abuse of discretion standard.” State v. Fry, 2006-NMSC-001, ¶ 52, 138 N.M. 700, 126 P.3d 516 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In reviewing inadvertent remarks made by witnesses, generally, “the trial court’s offer to give a curative instruction, even if refused by the defendant, is sufficient to cure any prejudicial effect.” Id. ¶ 53. Here, the district court found that the witness’s remark was “not . . . in deliberate violation of the [pretrial] order” and therefore inadvertent and curable by a limiting instruction. See State v. Gonzales, 2000-NMSC-028, ¶ 39, 129 N.M. 556, 11 P.3d 131 (distinguishing between inadvertent remarks made by a witness about . . . inadmissible [matters] and similar testimony intentionally elicited by the prosecutor”), overruled on other grounds by State v. Tollardo, 2012-NMSC-008, ¶ 37 n.6, 275 P.3d 110. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in responding to the witness’s unsolicited comment, Defendant was not entitled to a mistrial.