Opinion ID: 1685449
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Emotional Outburst by Family of the Victim

Text: For his fourth point on appeal, Davis contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion for mistrial after the mother of the victim, upon viewing a postmortem photograph of her son, cried out in the presence of the jury. The photograph was displayed while the State was questioning a pathologist, as he was trying to explain the gunshot wounds. Mistrial is an extreme remedy and is proper only when an error is so prejudicial that justice cannot be served by continuing the trial and when it cannot be cured by an instruction. Gates v. State, 338 Ark. 530, 2 S.W.3d 40 (1999). The decision to grant a mistrial is within the sound discretion of the trial court, and will not be overturned absent a showing of abuse or upon manifest prejudice to the complaining party. Id. We have held that the trial judge is in a superior position to evaluate any prejudicial effect of such an emotional display upon the jury. Solomon v. State, 323 Ark. 178, 913 S.W.2d 288 (1996). In Solomon , the victim's daughters had approached the jury as the bailiff was escorting the jury from the courthouse for lunch, and created a scene by crying and screaming I want my momma. There was even an allegation by appellant that the scene was orchestrated. Id. However, in concluding that the trial court had not abused its discretion in denying the mistrial motion, this court noted that we have held that emotional outbursts by the relatives of murder victims are not unusual and are difficult to control. The trial court exercises a wide latitude of discretion in the control of the trial and resorts to the drastic remedy of a mistrial as a last resort. Id. (quoting Venable v. State, 260 Ark. 201, 538 S.W.2d 286 (1976)). In Venable , appellant alleged that the trial court should gave granted the mistrial motions he made after the stepmother of the victim broke down on the witness stand and asked why anybody would want to kill the deceased, and after the victim's wife, an alleged rape victim, ran from the courtroom crying during the prosecutor's summation. There, however, we noted that no accusatory remarks were made or were directed at the accused and that the trial judge was in a better position to evaluate the impact of the occurrences than anyone else. Venable, 260 Ark. at 215, 538 S.W.2d at 294-95. This court held that there was no abuse of discretion in the denial of the motions for mistrial. Id. After the emotional outburst in the present case, the prosecutor apologized to the court and explained that the State had been under the impression that anyone who could not accept this testimony had already left the room. The events did take place in front of the judge and he commented that, not only was the mother taken out of the room before there was a production, the prosecution took steps to ensure that nobody else remained in the room that would not be able to handle the testimony or the accompanying pictures. As in Venable, supra , no accusatory remarks were made by the victim's mother, and she did not direct any remarks toward the accused. We find that the trial court was in the best position to determine any prejudicial effects, and that it did not abuse its discretion by denying the motion for a mistrial.