Opinion ID: 2029523
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Commenting on the Defendant's Opportunity to Tailor His Testimony

Text: We next consider Mayhorn's argument that the prosecutor committed misconduct by repeatedly questioning Mayhorn about his opportunity to review the state's evidence before testifying in his own defense. Mayhorn objected to some of these questions. The prosecutor asked Mayhorn if he knew what Nicole Jordan, Nicole Johnson, and Steven Johnson had said about the case before Mayhorn testified. She also suggested that Mayhorn's statements to police differed from his testimony at trial because you hadn't read all the police reports and the story didn't come to you then, did it? In total, the prosecutor noted 10 times during cross-examination of Mayhorn and once during the state's rebuttal to Mayhorn's closing argument that Mayhorn had an opportunity to review the state's evidence, including the testimony of several witnesses and thousands of pages of police reports, before testifying. We have recently addressed the propriety of a prosecutor commenting on the defendant's opportunity to tailor his testimony by his presence at trial and opportunity to review the evidence. [T]he prosecution cannot use a defendant's exercise of his right of confrontation to impeach the credibility of his testimony, at least in the absence of evidence that the defendant has tailored his testimony to fit the state's case. Without specific evidence of tailoring, such questions and comments by the prosecution imply that all defendants are less believable simply as a result of exercising the right of confrontation. The exercise of this constitutional right, by itself, is not evidence of guilt. Swanson, 707 N.W.2d at 657-58. The state cites no evidence that Mayhorn actually tailored his testimony to fit the evidence previously presented at trial. Because there is no evidence of actual tailoring, we conclude that the prosecutor's remarks regarding Mayhorn's opportunity to tailor his testimony constituted misconduct.