Court Opinion

ID: 9782623
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 19:00:22.751676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:06.614883
License: Public Domain

Cherry, J.,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent because I disagree with the majority’s conclusions that defense counsel acted improperly and that there was a manifest necessity for a mistrial. I therefore would grant the petition.

The negative inference

The majority concludes, without citation to authority, that it is improper to argue a negative inference from the assertion of a proper hearsay objection. To the contrary, it is my view that this case presents the exact situation for which the negative inference is intended.
A videotaped interview of a defendant shortly after a shooting is the type of evidence that one normally expects to be presented at a criminal trial. In addition to the State’s burden of proving the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, see, e.g., Cordova v. State, 116 Nev. 664, 666, 6 P.3d 481, 483 (2000), the State has a duty to ensure that justice is done, not just to obtain a conviction. See Campbell v. United States, 365 U.S. 85, 96 (1961); Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935). Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has explained that “a defendant is entitled to argue to the jury that the government’s failure to present a particular type of strong evidence . . . weakens its case.” U.S. v. Thompson, 37 F.3d 450, 454 (9th Cir. 1994). And historically, “the propriety of such an inference in general is not doubted.” 2 John Henry Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence 192 (Chadbourn ed. 1970).
Here, it is clear from opening statements that the defense expected the State to present the videotape to the jury. Indeed, the record reflects that both the defense and the prosecution expected a redacted version of Glover’s statement to be presented. It was not until the morning of trial that the defense was informed otherwise. Because of *721the evidentiary rules, the defense was unable to admit the videotape. However, the State could have offered it as the admission of a party opponent. See NRS 51.035(3)(a). Therefore, the evidence was “peculiarly within [the] power [of the State] to produce.” Graves v. United States, 150 U.S. 118, 121 (1893); see also State v. Smith, 706 P.2d 1052, 1057-58 (Utah 1985) (quoting Chicago Col. of Ost. Med. v. George A. Fuller Co., 719 F.2d 1335, 1353 (7th Cir. 1983)). When the State failed to produce the videotape, it naturally created a presumption that the evidence was unfavorable. See Graves, 150 U.S. at 121.
In this case, the district court recognized that such inferences are proper and permitted negative inferences to be argued based on the State’s cancellation of a gunshot residue test and apparent unwillingness to examine one of the key witnesses to the shooting. There was no compelling reason for the district court to preclude the same inference with respect to the videotape. The videotape was the type of evidence that would be natural for the State to produce, the State could have presented it, and the State chose not to do so. In my view, the fact that the defense was precluded from introducing the videotape has no bearing on the propriety of the negative inference. Therefore, I must disagree with the majority that defense counsel acted improperly in raising a negative inference based on the State’s failure to present the videotape.
The majority’s reliance on Johnson v. United States, 347 F.2d 803 (D.C. Cir. 1965), and Reichert v. United States, 359 F.2d 278 (D.C. Cir. 1966), is misplaced for at least three reasons.
First, in both cases the prosecution referenced the defendant’s failure to use the applicable evidence for impeachment or other purposes. Clearly, the prosecutors’ comments in those cases would be impermissible in Nevada because a defendant has no burden in a criminal case. Accordingly, this court has stated that comments on the failure to present evidence are not available to the State because they impermissibly shift the burden of proof to the defense. Browning v. State, 120 Nev. 347, 360, 91 P.3d 39, 49 (2004). For that reason alone, Reichert and Johnson are inapposite.
Second, the prosecutors in those two cases went beyond merely inferring that the unadmitted statements would corroborate their witnesses’ testimony. In Johnson, the prosecutor explicitly stated, “They corroborate the testimony of the police officer from the witness stand.” Johnson, 347 F.2d at 805. Likewise, in Reichert, the prosecutor stated, *722Reichert, 359 F.2d at 281. While the statement in Reichert was not as direct as that in Johnson, it clearly inferred that the statements corroborated the in-court testimony. Furthermore, the prejudice in Reichert was heightened because the district court instructed the jury that it could consider the prior statements to the police, even though they had not been admitted as evidence. Coleman v. United States, 515 A.2d 439, 451 n.11 (D.C. 1986).
*721Did you see counsel impeach any of the Government witnesses with any of their earlier statements? Now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we submit to you that the descriptions, the report, the facts in this case are unimpeached. Do you recall counsel impeaching the descriptions of either one of these two robbers?
*722Less than two years after Reichert was decided, the court that had decided both Johnson and Reichert distinguished those cases in Gibson v. United States, 403 F.2d 569 (D.C. Cir. 1968). In that case, the prosecutor had referred to a prior unadmitted statement and the defendant’s failure to use it for impeachment purposes. The court noted that the jury had previously been made aware of the statement and concluded that the error did not rise to the level of that in Johnson and Reichert because “[i]n both of those cases there was affirmative argument that the contents of the alleged statement corroborated the testimony of the witness.” Gibson, 403 F.2d at 570 n.1. The present case is closer to Gibson than to either Johnson or Reichert. Defense counsel here commented on a prior statement of which the jury was already aware. Furthermore, defense counsel did not state that the videotaped interview would corroborate Glover’s in-court testimony. He merely argued that the jury could infer that the State had chosen not to show the videotape because it would hurt the State’s case. Accordingly, just as in Gibson, to the extent that counsel’s comments were improper, “objection and correction by the District Judge” would have been sufficient. Id.
Third, neither Johnson nor Reichert involved a mistrial requested by the State. There were no double jeopardy concerns, nor did any court conclude that the prosecutors’ comments in those cases created a manifest necessity for a mistrial. As will be discussed below, the simple fact that the court in Gibson concluded that a correctional instruction could rectify any prejudice made by reference to the prior out-of-court statement demonstrates that the situation here did not rise to a level justifying a mistrial.
The majority’s references to the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice also miss the mark. Clearly, it would be unfair to raise a negative inference against a party for failing to present evidence when that party was precluded from presenting that evidence by the trial court. But that is not the case here. With respect to the State, the evidence was not excluded by the court as inadmissible; the sole reason the evidence was not presented was because the State chose not to present it. Therefore, I conclude that the inference was proper.
The majority concludes not only that defense counsel’s inference in closing argument was improper, but describes defense counsel’s actions as the culmination of repeated disobedience to district court rulings. In fact, the majority seems to suggest that this repeated misconduct places the facts of this case in the same category as those in *723Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497 (1978), where defense counsel explicitly told the jury that they were participating in a second trial because the State had previously withheld evidence. Again, I must disagree.
The videotaped police interview first became an issue during opening statements when the prosecutor raised a hearsay objection to defense counsel’s slideshow presentation that included quotations from Glover’s recorded interview. The majority states that the prosecution warned defense counsel that it did not plan to introduce Glover’s statement at trial. What the majority seems to ignore is the prosecution’s concession that defense counsel had done nothing wrong because, the night before trial, counsel had met in chambers to discuss redacting part of the defendant’s statement. Thus, as late as the eve of trial, both parties had contemplated the admission of Glover’s videotaped interview.1
The next time the issue arose was during the testimony of Detective Jesus Prieto. Prior to defense counsel’s cross-examination of Detective Prieto, defense counsel acknowledged that he could not get into Glover’s comments in the interview but asserted that “the fact that he showed up, the fact that he turned in the gun, the fact that he sat down with him, those things I believe are all admissible and all highly relevant as to whether or not this was self-defense.” The district court stated, “Well, we’ll take it as it comes.” Defense counsel followed the court’s direction and did not ask Prieto about the substance of any of Glover’s statements. No wrongdoing can be imputed to defense counsel for asking Prieto about the circumstances of the interview when the district court had, on the record, stated that it would rule on that issue “as it comes.” Moreover, evidence showing that a recorded interview took place was not hearsay; clearly, the only evidence precluded by a sustained hearsay objection is the specific out-of-court statements. To the extent that the majority implies that defense counsel violated the district court’s evidentiary rulings by making the jury aware that a recorded interview took place, I cannot agree.
The videotaped interview was not mentioned again until closing argument, when defense counsel tried to raise a negative inference based on the State’s failure to present the videotaped interview to the jury.2
Thus, after the first objectionable reference in opening statements (which the State acknowledge was justified), counsel made no ref*724erence to Glover’s statements in the interview. Accordingly, I cannot agree with the majority that the record exhibits repeated violation of the district court’s evidentiary rulings.
During argument on the State’s motion for mistrial, the State tried to expand its argument to include other instances of alleged improper behavior. The district court declined to expand the argument, stating, “I’m not seeing this as any cumulative problem. I’m isolating it to what was said here.” A few moments later the court stated, “I would rather restrict [argument] to this particular comment.” The majority asserts that “the fact the defense kept returning to the unadmitted statement figured in the district court’s conclusion that the jury could not be expected to disregard the defense’s comments about it.” Based on the district court’s comments, I cannot agree. The record reveals that the argument on the motion for mistrial was focused on defense counsel’s choice of words and the impact of his comment on the minds of the jurors. During the lengthy argument on the merits of the State’s motion for mistrial and the subsequent decision by the district court, the court did not make a single reference to defense counsel having violated its evidentiary rulings prior to closing argument. When the district court pronounced its oral ruling, there was no mention of the prior objections that the majority describes as cumulating to warrant a mistrial. Rather, the district court’s ruling was based entirely on its conclusion that nine words in Glover’s closing argument — “[b]ecause it is devastating to their case, absolutely devastating” — went beyond an inference to argument of facts that were not in evidence.
I conclude that defense counsel raised a proper inference in closing argument. Although defense counsel was overzealous in suggesting the answer to his own rhetorical question, he did not describe the contents of the videotape, nor did he state that it conformed with his client’s testimony at trial. Rather, defense counsel was raising a proper inference: that the State chose not to present evidence that it would normally produce because that evidence was harmful to the State’s case. The only error, if any, was in going beyond the inference to suggest that the contents of the videotape itself were “devastating to [the State’s] case.”
By condemning defense counsel’s actions here and characterizing them as repeated disobedience to the district court’s orders, I fear that the majority’s ruling today will have a chilling effect on defense counsels’ efforts to provide their clients with the effective representation that is their constitutional right.

*725
Manifest necessity

Because I conclude that defense counsel’s inference was proper, the only basis for a mistrial was the extent to which defense counsel commented on facts that were not in evidence. However, even if defense counsel’s actions in that respect were improper, I do not agree that they constituted a manifest necessity for a mistrial for three reasons.
First, a negative inference based on the failure to produce evidence is considered a particularly weak form of argument. For this reason, courts have held that “it is wiser to hold that if an argument on failure to produce proof is fallacious, the remedy is the answering argument and the jury’s good sense.” 2 Kenneth S. Broun, et al., McCormick on Evidence 225-26 (6th ed. 2006); see also Wilson v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 893 F.2d 1149, 1152 (10th Cir. 1990); Allen v. U.S., 603 A.2d 1219, 1227 (D.C. 1992). The circumstances here simply did not require the district court to intervene and thus infringe on the defendant’s “ ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal.’ ’ ’ Arizona v. Washington, 434 U.S. 497, 503 (1978) (quoting Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 689 (1949)). In my opinion, the prosecutor did not meet his “heavy burden of justifying the mistrial in order to avoid the doublejeopardy bar.” Hylton v. District Court, 103 Nev. 418, 422, 743 P.2d 622, 625 (1987).
Generally, when courts have concluded that defense misconduct warranted a mistrial, it has involved behavior far more egregious than what occurred here. For instance, manifest necessity has been found by courts where: (1) defense counsel repeatedly refused to comply with the trial judge’s admonitions and then proceeded to argue with the court in the presence of the jury, leading the jury to believe “that defense counsel was incompetent or unscrupulous,” U.S. v. Hoa Quoc Ta, 221 Fed. App’x 938, 944 (11th Cir. 2007); (2) in violation of the court’s order, the defendant published an advertisement in the geographic area from which the jury was drawn asserting his innocence and claiming that he was being persecuted by the State, Reinstein v. Superior Court Dept. of Trial Court, 661 F.2d 255 (1st Cir. 1981); (3) the trial judge believed that the defendant was responsible for arranging the murder of the prosecution’s only witness in the middle of trial, United States v. Mastrangelo, 662 F.2d 946 (2d Cir. 1981); (4) the defendant perjured himself on the stand, McKissick v. United States, 379 F.2d 754, 761 (5th Cir. 1967); (5) defense counsel deliberately disregarded the judge’s instructions and rulings, persisted in improper questioning, and was overheard by jurors stating that he would have the case transferred, resulting in several jurors expressing bias against the defense (one juror stated that “she had ‘a 17-year-old that is more compliant than [defense counsel]”’), U.S. v. Spears, 89 F. Supp. 2d 891, 893-95 *726(W.D. Mich. 2000); (6) defense counsel repeatedly violated the court’s pretrial order precluding reference to the victim’s incarceration, asked questions after objections were sustained, made personal comments to the prosecution (including demeaning a female prosecutor), and withheld evidence from the State and then presented it in the defense’s case-in-chief, Quinones v. State, 766 So. 2d 1165, 1166-67 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2000); (7) defense counsel engaged in a pattern of inappropriate behavior that included becoming argumentative with potential jurors, becoming combative with the trial judge, asking irrelevant and bizarre questions of witnesses, and “deliberately destroying the] trial by doing something that he knew to be inappropriate,” People v. Burtron, 877 N.E.2d 87, 88-89, 93-94 (Ill. App. Ct. 2007); (8) the defendant skipped bail and was not present for trial, Brown v. State, 390 N.E.2d 1058, 1064 (Ind. App. 1979); and (9) in violation of a court order, defense counsel contacted multiple witnesses for the State and told them that they should not testify unless they received a grant of immunity, State v. Fosse, 424 N.W.2d 725, 727-30 (Wis. Ct. App. 1988).
Second, the district court had multiple alternatives to a mistrial. Both federal and state courts have consistently overturned a trial judge’s decision to grant a mistrial because the trial judge failed to consider or apply a less drastic alternative. See Johnson v. Karnes, 198 F.3d 589, 596 (6th Cir. 1999) (“We further find it significant that the trial court judge failed to consider less drastic alternatives, but instead immediately decided that a mistrial was appropriate.”); Harpster v. State of Ohio, 128 F.3d 322, 330 (6th Cir. 1997) (“Although the decision of a trial court to declare a mistrial based on potential juror bias is entitled to special respect, it would be an unreasonable application of the law, as established by Supreme Court precedent, to conclude that manifest necessity existed for a mistrial in this case . . . [because] a simple corrective instruction would have sufficiently protected against juror bias.”); Brady v. Samaha, 667 F.2d 224, 230 (1st Cir. 1981) (concluding that the trial judge erred in failing to “consider any alternatives to a mistrial such as severance or curative instructions” (internal punctuation omitted)); Dunkerley v. Hogan, 579 F.2d 141, 147-48 (2d Cir. 1978) (concluding that while the trial judge did not act “impetuously,” the fact that there was at least one alternative to the mistrial meant that it was not dictated by manifest necessity); Jones v. Com., 400 N.E.2d 242, 251 (Mass. 1980) (concluding that severance was the appropriate remedy and that “[a]ppellate deference will be accorded the trial judge’s discretionary determination that ‘manifest necessity’ exists only if the record reflects that the trial judge gave reasoned consideration to the various available alternatives . . . before declaring a mistrial”); State v. Bertrand, 587 A.2d 1219, 1226 (N.H. 1991) (reversing trial court’s decision to grant a mistrial, noting that “[t]he alternatives to a mistrial were not discussed,” stating that “more *727consideration should be given to the alternatives to granting a mistrial than to the consequences of granting one,” and directing the lower courts to exhaust alternatives before declaring a mistrial). As the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has aptly stated, the presence of even one reasonable alternative renders a decision to declare a mistrial unwarranted by manifest necessity. Dunkerley, 579 F.2d at 147-48.
In the present case, the court had several reasonable alternatives to declaring a mistrial. If the court was concerned that defense counsel had purposefully ignored the court’s evidentiary rulings, it “might have sent the jury out temporarily and have held the attorney in contempt.” State v. Frazier, 555 A.2d 1078, 1086 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1989). Another alternative was to allow the State to reopen its case and present the evidence if it wished. Or the court could have given a curative instruction, as requested by defense counsel in this case.3 Curative instructions present a particularly strong alternative to a mistrial given that, as this court has stated numerous times, we presume that a jury will follow jury instructions. Lisle v. State, 113 Nev. 540, 558, 937 P.2d 473, 484 (1997). Here, where the district court had multiple alternatives, the district court’s decision to declare the mistrial was simply not dictated by manifest necessity.
Third, in this case the record suggests that the State may have sought a mistrial to bolster its case. Not only was the State able to preview the defendant’s case, but in response to Glover’s arguments at trial regarding the State’s cancellation of the gunpowder residue test, the prosecution requested that testing shortly after the mistrial was granted. And in granting the mistrial, the district court specifically noted that “this is a difficult and very close case.” As such, the fact that the trial was near completion weighed against granting a mistrial because there was a danger that the mistrial was sought, at least in part, to permit the State the opportunity to improve its case against Glover. As the Supreme Court stated in Washington, the strictest scrutiny is applied in cases where the “prosecutor requests a mistrial in order to buttress weaknesses in his evidence.” 434 U.S. at 507-08.
*728In my view, the district court’s decision to grant a mistrial after all of the evidence had been presented, based solely on defense counsel’s inference in closing argument, severely infringed on the defendant’s “ ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal.’ ” Id. at 503 (quoting Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 689 (1949)). In the words of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, “Having carefully reviewed the entire record in this case, [I] conclude that the trial judge failed to engage in a scrupulous exercise of discretion in declaring a mistrial.” Brady, 667 F.2d at 229.

Conclusion

For the reasons stated above, I am unconvinced that there was a manifest necessity for a mistrial or that the ends of justice would have been defeated had the district court permitted the trial to continue. See United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. 579, 580 (1824). Therefore, I would grant the petition.

The record reflects that the defense attorney who prepared the PowerPoint presentation and presented Glover’s opening statement was not informed until after the State’s opening that the State would not be presenting the videotaped interview at trial.

While the majority concludes that the inference was improper, the record reflects that the “improper” negative inference was not the basis for mistrial. In their briefs, the parties agree that a negative inference is proper. Rather, the *724issue that was presented in the district court and that is argued here is whether defense counsel had gone beyond the scope of an inference and had told the jury what the videotape included and thus commented on facts that were not in evidence. Accordingly, rather than create a rule limiting a defendant’s use of negative inferences, I would refrain from deciding that issue and rule solely on the issue raised.

The majority asserts that an instruction directing the jury not to infer that defense counsel had seen the videotape would be a false instruction. However, the district court did not take time to fully consider a curative instruction and dismissed defense counsel’s suggestion out of hand. This does not preclude the possibility that a satisfactory instruction could have been fashioned. The district courts frequently instruct juries to simply disregard improper or inadmissible comments. See Valdez v. State, 124 Nev. 1172, 1192, 196 P.3d 465, 478-79 (2008); Pantano v. State, 122 Nev. 782, 793, 138 P.3d 477, 484 (2006); Hardison v. State, 104 Nev. 530, 533, 763 P.2d 52, 54 (1988). More thought should have been given to a curative instruction before the district court found that the only reasonable alternative was to declare a mistrial.