Opinion ID: 609734
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: guilt assuming hypotheticals

Text: 123 Thompson argues that he is entitled to a new trial on account of the prosecutor's use, in Thompson's phrase, of guilt assuming hypotheticals during redirect examination of Lancaster Police Chief Eric Mcavene. During cross examination of Mcavene, Thompson's counsel sought to establish that it was a common practice for police officers to run registry checks on license plates, and that such checks were done for many different reasons including requests from the public. Mcavene admitted that registry checks were conducted for a variety of reasons and that he was not consulted in every instance. 124 In response, government counsel sought to dispel the notion that registry information was freely disseminated. Pursuing that theme, the prosecutor asked Mcavene, [I]f a known drug dealer had asked you for a Registry check, would you do it for him? Before the witness could answer, the court upon objection ruled (mistakenly) that this question had already been asked. The prosecutor acquiesced and moved on to his next inquiry: [I]f William Thompson had asked you for the Registry check would you have done it? The court sustained Thompson's objection to this question, struck the question, and denied Thompson's motion for a mistrial. 125 It may be a close call whether either of these questions was improper as an implied assertion that Thompson was a drug dealer, but we need not pursue the issue. Even if both questions were error, they did not conceivably have such a prejudicial impact as to require reversal. Neither question was answered by the witness, one was stricken from the record, and the court elsewhere instructed the jury that statements of counsel are not evidence. The precise limits on who could obtain registry checks was largely a side-show and Mcavene's attitude toward disclosure was a subject raised by Thompson's own counsel.