Opinion ID: 4556289
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Green’s Direct Appeal

Text: After Green was sentenced, he appealed to this Court. Green argued that “highly irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial evidence was admitted against [him] at trial which deprived [him] of a fair trial.”22 The evidence Green identified consisted of Cindy’s testimony that she did not like Green because he hit Cindy’s mother, the mother’s testimony that Green had threatened to kill her and her children several years earlier, and the SANE nurse’s testimony that she believed what Sarah told her during her physical examination. Because Green did not object to Cindy’s testimony at trial, we reviewed that claim for plain error and found none: Green has failed to meet his heavy burden to show that allowing the unobjected-to testimony was such fundamental error that it jeopardized the fairness of the trial. Although the testimony might have been stricken if there had been an objection, we find that the other admissible evidence of Green’s guilt overcomes any prejudice from the older sister’s isolated remark. The victim testified that Green raped her at the Stevens Street home, her older sister and Mother testified about the events following the rape, and Culp testified convincingly about the results of her sexual assault examination of the victim. Further, the DNA evidence recovered from the victim’s clothes and her body matched Green’s DNA. With such overwhelming evidence of guilt, 22 App. to Opening Br. at A735. 12 Green has failed to show that the admission of the older sister’s statement would have affected the outcome of the trial.23 Green did, however, object to Tracy’s testimony that Green had threatened her and the children; in fact, the court sustained that objection. Thus, Green’s claim was that the trial court erred by not giving a curative instruction. But Green had not asked for an instruction so we also subjected this claim to plain error review: A similar plain error analysis applies to this argument. After reviewing the record, we find that the isolated reference to threats that were allegedly made years before the rape was not so prejudicial as to undermine the fairness of Green’s trial. Further, as we noted when reviewing the older sister’s testimony, the overwhelming testimonial and physical evidence of his guilt outweighed any prejudice that might have occurred.24 Green’s claim that the SANE nurse had improperly vouched for Sarah’s credibility met a similar fate. After recognizing the impropriety of one witness bolstering or vouching for the credibility of another witness, we explained why the trial court’s failure to declare a mistrial—a remedy Green did not request—was not plain error: [The SANE nurse’s] comment was an isolated occurrence. The Superior Court asked Green’s attorney more than once what action she wanted the court to take. Green’s attorney did not ask for a mistrial, but instead asked that the statement be stricken from the record. The Superior Court complied and promptly instructed the jury to disregard Culp’s statement. Under the circumstances, where the court took the steps requested by counsel to mitigate any prejudice, and no request 23 2016 WL 4699156, at . 24 Id. at . 13 was made for a mistrial, the Superior Court did not plainly err by continuing with the trial.25 Finally, we rejected Green’s contention that, regardless of whether the individual errors separately warranted reversal, their cumulative effect did, pointing out once again that they were “isolated events” and that “[a]ny prejudicial evidence . . . [was] far outweighed by the overwhelming evidence of guilt.”26 We therefore affirmed Green’s convictions, and, on September 23, 2016, issued our mandate to the Superior Court.