Opinion ID: 2379024
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Political partisanship in a trial.

Text: During the cross-examination of a Commonwealth witness, defense counsel, for the purpose of showing bias, asked the witness if he had changed his registration from Republican to Democratic and had not gotten a job under Charles Baker, Democratic City Commissioner, whereupon the trial assistant district attorney remarked: He would only be a Democrat because the Democrats are in, Mr. Witkin, after 69 years of misrule. Since it was well-known that the defendant was a Republican ward leader, this reference to the Republicans being guilty of 69 years of misrule could only be prejudicial to him. The accused had the right to be tried on his own record and not on what the entire Republican Party might or might not have done in 69 years. It was not proper that he should be smitten as was Balaam's ass with faults not proved to be his own. When defense counsel moved for the withdrawal of a juror, the motion was denied and the Court adjured the jury: The jury will be strongly urged to ignore completely all references to Republicans and Democrats. We are here as Americans. We are not concerned with the party allegiance of any of the witnesses or any of the defendants or any of the persons referred to. This adjuration was not sufficient. The assistant district attorney should have been reprimanded for his remark which, at least for the moment, turned the trial into a political contest and away from a serious, solemn ascertainment of the truth of the charges in the indictment which, of course, made no reference to political parties. To charge the Republicans with 69 years of misrule and suggest that the defendant, since he was a Republican, was part of that misrule, saddled upon him a burden which the Commonwealth had no right to place upon him  and the jury should have been so instructed. The most essential function of a trial judge is to keep the testimony flowing in the channel of relevancy so as to avoid disputations on issues having no bearing on the question of guilt or innocence. The assistant district attorney apologized to the Court for his remark but he did not retract it, thus allowing the charge to hang over the cliff of indecision, with the Court neither ordering it withdrawn or cutting the rope to let it fall into the abyss of harmless error.