Opinion ID: 1940840
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Denial of Mistrial for Volunteered Comment by State's Witness Concerning Defendant's Failure to Take Polygraph Examination.

Text: During the course of the trial, the district court admonished the prosecutor to instruct the State's witnesses that they should avoid any reference to defendant's failure to submit to a polygraph examination. Notwithstanding the prosecutor's apparent compliance with this directive, the following remarks came into the record during the testimony of a special agent of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation: [BY THE COUNTY ATTORNEY:] Q. Did you tell him [defendant] anything as to why you wanted him to come in for additional questions? A. Yes I told himhe had already told us that he was the last person to have seen her alive.... [T]here were several questions that had arisen in the course of the investigation that we wanted to get cleared up. I told him there was basically no other way to do it but to ask him and have him explain it to us, since he had already refused a polygraph examination.... Immediately following this answer by the witness, counsel for the defendant requested and was granted permission to move for a mistrial out of the presence of the jury. Such motion was made asserting that the evidence concerning the refusal of a polygraph examination was so prejudicial to the defense that no admonition by the court could eradicate or remove the resulting taint from the minds of the jurors. The trial court, upon the return of the jury, directed that the improper evidence be stricken from the record and that the jury disregard it. It denied defendant's motion for a mistrial. Defendant's argument concerning the motion for mistrial is basically the same on appeal as it was in the district court, i.e., that the remark was highly prejudicial and of the type which no admonition could eradicate or remove from the minds of the jurors. As we observed in State v. Peterson, 189 N.W.2d 891, 896 (Iowa 1971), the issue is quite different from allowing inadmissible evidence to be submitted for the jury's consideration. Where, as in the present case, improper evidence has been promptly stricken and the jury admonished to disregard it, the trial court has not made an erroneous ruling on the evidence adverse to defendant. Id. at 896. We commented on such situations as follows in Peterson: A reversal must be predicated upon the proposition that the ... answer, forbidden by the ruling on the motion in limine, was so prejudicial, its effect upon the jury could not be erased by this procedure.... Ordinarily the striking of improper testimony cures any error. Only in extreme instances where it is manifest that the prejudicial effect of the evidence on the jury remained, despite its exclusion, and influenced the jury is the defendant denied a fair trial and entitled to a reversal. Id. at 896 (citations omitted). The principles espoused in Peterson have been reaffirmed in State v. McGonigle, 401 N.W.2d 39, 43 (Iowa 1987); State v. Brotherton, 384 N.W.2d 375, 381 (Iowa 1986); and State v. Hamilton, 335 N.W.2d 154, 160 (Iowa 1983). Under the foregoing standard, defendant, in order to predicate a reversal of his conviction on the stricken testimony, must demonstrate that the stricken material was of a type more likely than not to implant prejudice of an indelible nature upon the minds of the jurors. Defendant asserts that we have already held in State v. Green, 254 Iowa 1379, 121 N.W.2d 89 (1963), that evidence that an accused has refused a polygraph test has this capacity for taint. The reversal in Green was based on more than one ground. The issue concerning the polygraph evidence was not subjected to analysis under the principles espoused in Peterson as we believe it now must be. We find it difficult to draw general conclusions as to the prejudicial impact of the type of evidence improperly presented to the jury in the present case. It depends to some extent on how jurors view the reliability of polygraph examinations. More precisely we believe it turns on how jurors believe an innocent person accused of crime should respond to a request to take a polygraph examination. In focusing on these considerations, we are unable to conclude that evidence that a polygraph test has been declined is necessarily so prejudicial that the jury could not heed the court's admonition to disregard it. Accordingly, in our application of the Peterson principles, we conclude that the striking of the evidence coupled with an admonition to the jury sufficiently cured the potential for prejudice. The unfortunate circumstance which occurred therefore provides no basis for upsetting the conviction.