Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-12234 No. 6452
04-05-2017
SEAN MICHAEL LEE, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Michael L. Barber, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Laura Dulic, Assistant District Attorney, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE Memorandum decisions of this Court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding authority for any proposition of law. Trial Court No. 3AN-14-5657 CR
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Appeal from the District Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Alex Swiderski, Judge. Appearances: Michael L. Barber, under contract with the Public Defender Agency, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. Laura Dulic, Assistant District Attorney, Anchorage, and Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee. Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and Suddock, Superior Court Judge. Judge ALLARD.
Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d).
Sean Michael Lee was convicted, following a jury trial, of fourth-degree assault under AS 11.41.230(a)(1) for recklessly causing physical injury to his mother. Lee challenges his conviction on appeal, arguing that the trial court erred when it denied his motion for mistrial after the jury mistakenly heard evidence that the court had excluded from the trial.
The excluded evidence involved a brief exchange between Lee and the arresting officer in which the officer explained that a person could be charged with fourth-degree assault for recklessly putting another person in fear of imminent physical injury, even if no physical injury occurred. Lee argued that this exchange was likely to confuse the jury because Lee had not been charged with a fear assault, but had been charged with recklessly causing physical injury. The trial court agreed with Lee that the tape should be redacted because the exchange was irrelevant to the current charges, although the court noted that it was "not sure that it's very prejudicial."
At trial, a redacted version of the police interview was played for the jury. However, after the jury retired for deliberations, a court staff person discovered that the recording that had been sent to the jury room included the portion of the interview where the officer mentioned the possibility that a person could be charged with a fear assault. The staff person also overheard the jury listening to the unredacted recording. Based on this, Lee moved for a mistrial.
The prosecutor argued that the mistake in submitting the unredacted recording did not prejudice Lee. The prosecutor pointed out she had never argued that Lee should be convicted under a fear assault theory and that the jury had been properly instructed on the prosecutor's physical injury assault theory.
The trial court agreed with the prosecutor that the jury was unlikely to be confused about the basis for the State's charges in this case. The trial court nevertheless offered to provide a curative instruction to make sure that there was no confusion. The defense attorney refused the offer of a curative instruction and insisted that any remedy other than a mistrial would be inadequate. The trial court denied the motion for mistrial.
On appeal, Lee argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for mistrial. "We review a trial court's decision on a motion for a mistrial for abuse of discretion." We will uphold a trial court's decision to deny a motion for mistrial unless we find that the decision was "clearly untenable and unreasonable."
Tritt v. State, 173 P.3d 1017, 1019 (Alaska App. 2008).
See State v. Alexander, 364 P.3d 458, 466 (Alaska App. 2015). --------
We find no abuse of discretion here. Given the manner in which this case was litigated, the trial judge reasonably concluded that a mistrial was not needed and that a curative instruction would suffice to cure any prejudice caused by the jury's inadvertent exposure to this excluded evidence.
Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the superior court.