Opinion ID: 1771042
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Trial Court Erred in Refusing to Grant Appellant's Request for Declaral of a Mistrial Upon the Prejudicial Remarks of the Prosecuting Attorney.

Text: On redirect examination Sharon White stated that she had hocked her husband's guns in order to obtain money to get back to the Coast and to get her daughter's prescription filled. The prosecuting attorney then asked, prescription to treat a disease that this man [appellant] gave her? White objected to the question and requested a mistrial. The trial judge sustained the objection, admonished the jury to disregard it, and denied the motion for mistrial. White contends that the remark was so prejudicial that it denied him a fair trial and the judge committed reversible error by denying the mistrial. He cites Acevedo v. State, 467 So.2d 220, 226 (Miss. 1985), and Keyes v. State, 312 So.2d 7, 10 (Miss. 1975), as support for his proposition that the prosecutor's remark amounted to reversible error. In Keyes this Court admonished prosecutors to refrain from making extreme statements; however, the case was reversed on other grounds. Keyes at 10. In Acevedo the prosecutor continually ignored the trial court's repeated admonitions to discontinue a forbidden line of questioning, requiring reversal of the case for prosecutorial misconduct. Acevedo at 226. The facts in this case come nowhere near that in Acevedo. The prosecutor here made one extreme statement. He was admonished to discontinue this line of questioning and he never repeated it again. Also, it is clearly the law in Mississippi that juries are presumed to heed the trial judge's directive to disregard a question or statement or even an entire testimony. Cabello v. State, 490 So.2d 852, 857 (Miss. 1986); Johnson v. State, 475 So.2d 1136, 1142 (Miss. 1985); Stringer v. State, 477 So.2d 1335, 1338 (Miss. 1985); Sand v. State, 467 So.2d 907, 911 (Miss. 1985). This principle, taken with all the other evidence as to whether or not D.M. contracted trichomonas from her father, renders this assignment of error without merit.