No New Trial For Prosecutor’s Alleged Failure To Prep Witness

The Minnesota Supreme Court has held  as harmless a prosecutor’s failure to prepare a witness who testified regarding inadmissible evidence.

Whitson argues that the prosecutor committed misconduct entitling him to a new trial when the prosecutor failed to adequately prepare Ben King to testify and elicited testimony that had been ruled inadmissible. Specifically, Whitson argues that the prosecutor did nothing to inform King prior to testifying that evidence regarding the threats sent to him and J.M. was inadmissible, and contends that the prosecutor’s redirect question about why King’s story had changed logically called for inadmissible testimony. Finally, Whitson argues that the prejudice caused by the jury hearing King’s reference to the threats was not cured by the court’s instruction. According to Whitson, the context in which King referred to the threats clearly implied that Whitson was their source, and the court’s curative instruction—issued following a defense objection and a 4-hour delay in the presentation of evidence—actually served to focus attention on King’s inadmissible testimony.

Prosecutorial misconduct is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt if the jury’s verdict was “surely unattributable” to the misconduct…

Here, the alleged misconduct was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. First, the alleged misconduct was a single question. The prosecutor made no attempt to elicit the answer again after the defense objection was sustained and did not refer to the answer at any other point in the trial.

The court also rejected as baseless a Brady claim. (Mike Frisch)