Moving for Mistrial
by: Abassos • May 2, 2010 • no comments
The Oregon Supreme Court just granted review on the question of whether an attorney must move for a mistrial at the precise moment of the objectionable incident or whether the attorney may wait until the next natural break. The trial judge said that, had the motion for mistrial been made at the time of the objection "I would have granted the mistrial." But because the attorney waited until the next break to make the motion outside of the presence of the jury, the judge could no longer grant it. State v. Decesare
This is a stupid rule that hopefully the Oregon Supreme Court will end here. If an objection is made at the precise moment of the offensive testimony, there's no good reason to require that the motion for mistrial occur simultaneously.
