Opinion ID: 2514209
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Misleading the jury

Text: Valdivia asserts that the DPA attempted to mislead the jury into believing that any statements which the witnesses had adopted as not being part of their reports were not evidence. While discussing the charge of second degree terroristic threatening, which the prosecution alleged Valdivia had committed against Ihara, see supra note 6, the DPA stated: . . . [A]s to TT II, Mr. Ihara, Mr. Ihara is just driving down the road, minding his own business, and he doesn't know what's going on. But he came in here and he told you, and afterwards he wrote a report, and after he got home, he wrote another report. Why? Well, not a report, he wrote it for himself so he could remember. Why? Because he was so scared and shaken up after this happened, he didn't get everything down in his [first] report. And the reason why I mention that is because when the defense attorney gets up here, you're going to hear about how people didn't write things in their reports, or they didn't say things before, so now they must be lying. Okay? Reports are just that. They are not evidence. You did not get anybody's report in evidence. What you got  Defense counsel objected on the ground that the DPA had misstated the law and requested a bench conference. During the bench conference, defense counsel argued: Your Honor, this is misleading to the jury. This is misleading. The jury did not receive any report into evidence. What they adopted as true about cross-examination regarding reports is evidence. So when the prosecutor says, yes, I did put something in my report, the [fact is] that they didn't get the report. Whatever he said about the report they adopted from cross-examination is evidence. The circuit court sustained the objection and informed the DPA that he needed to rephrase his argument; the remark was not stricken, defense counsel having made no such request, and no curative instruction was given to the jury. On appeal, Valdivia reasserts that the DPA's statement was an attempt[ ] to mislead the jury on the applicable law, insofar as the DPA stat[ed] that statements adopted on cross-examination based on the police reports were not evidence. We disagree that the DPA's statement was misleading in that manner. In context, the DPA was clearly referring to Ihara's statement to the police and to his subsequent written report. The DPA was not referring to police reports. But, even if the DPA's remarks were susceptible to such a construction, he was still simply and correctly noting that the reports themselves (Ihara's, as well as those of the various police officers who testified) had not been received into evidence as exhibits and, thus, were not a part of the record. Accordingly, we do not believe that the DPA's statements regarding the evidentiary value of Ihara's previous statement and report constituted misconduct in the first instance; thus, we need not consider whether the statement was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.