Opinion ID: 2427926
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Public Defenders

Text: For his final point, Landreth urges that the prosecutor's reference to defense counsel as public defenders on cross-examination of a witness resulted in such prejudice that it could only be cured by the trial court's declaring a mistrial. During the cross-examination of a witness, the prosecutor asked the witness if he had ever told anyone other than the public defenders that you saw.... Defense counsel objected and asked for a mistrial. The court denied the motion and offered to admonish the jury to disregard the last question. Defense counsel reluctantly accepted the admonition. Landreth now claims that the admonition was insufficient to correct the error. This court has previously rejected a similar argument where the trial court referred to defense attorneys from the Public Defender's Office. See Vaughn v. State, 289 Ark. 31, 709 S.W.2d 73 (1986). In Vaughn , we opined that the objection made was more speculative than practical. Id. The same is true here. Any prejudice caused by reference to the defense counsel as public defenders is speculative at best. Even defense counsel, in making the objection, admitted that he did not believe that the reference should be prejudicial, but he thought others might be prejudiced. If there was prejudice, and this court is highly skeptical that any prejudice attached to the comment, it was not so great as to warrant a mistrial. In any event, it was cured by the admonition. Sullinger v. State, 310 Ark. 690, 840 S.W.2d 797 (1992); Porter v. State, 308 Ark. 137, 823 S.W.2d 846 (1992). There was no reversible error in this regard.