Federal District Court Judge Reggie Walton declares mistrial in baseball great, Roger Clemens perjury trial as to whether he lied to the Congressional Subcommittee investigating the use of steroids in major legal baseball.
Judge Walton declared that the mistake in the prosecutor’s opening statement was so egregious that even a “first year law student” would not have made it.
In the opening statement federal prosecutor’s played a audio visual tape to the jury of statement of a witness that the judge had previously ruled would be double hearsay, and hence, not admissible.
Although Judge Walton could have simply gave the jury instructions not to consider the evidence, he took the draconian step and declaring a mistrial stating that the trial was now tainted with extremely prejudicial evidence.
This case demonstrates the need for defense counsel to be extremely vigilant in insuring that prosecutors, negligently or intentionally, do not attempt to introduce into evidence hearsay testimony which can be extremely harmful to a defendant since defense counsel has no way of testing the credibility of such statements.
Law Office of Vincent J. Sanzone, Jr.
Elizabeth, New Jersey
(908) 354-7006
NJ criminal attorneys, NJ criminal lawyers, NJ criminal defense lawyers, NJ criminal defense attorneys, Newark criminal lawyers, Elizabeth nj criminal attorneys, Elizabeth criminal defense lawyers. Union county nj criminal lawyers.
No comments:
Post a Comment