State v. Schultz
Cited by
- State v. Streeter 377 N.W.2d 498 Minn. Ct. App. 1985
- State v. Ture 353 N.W.2d 502 Minn. 1984
- Schultz v. State 326 N.W.2d 4 Minn. 1982
- Schultz v. State 290 N.W.2d 778 Minn. 1980
Authorities cited
Identified automatically; this list may not be exhaustive.
- State v. Prettyman 293 Minn. 493
- State v. Caron 300 Minn. 123
Opinion text
PER CURIAM. Defendant, who was found guilty by a district court jury of aggravated rape, Minn.St.1974, § 609.291(2), and indecent liberties, Minn.St.1974, § 609.296, subd. 1(2), appeals from an order denying his post-trial motion for a new trial. The sole issue on appeal is whether the prosecutor committed prejudicial misconduct in his closing argument by expressing his personal opinion of defendant’s guilt. While the prosecutor did use expressions of personal opinion, we do not believe that the prosecutor’s comments prejudiced defendant. See, State v. Prettyman, 293 Minn. 493 , 198 N.W.2d 156 (1972). Although defense counsel did not object to the prosecutor’s argument until after the jury retired to deliberate and did not seek curative instructions, the trial court, on its own, did caution the jury that it should consider only the evidence and that counsel’s statements were not evidence. Further, the evidence of defendant’s guilt was adequate, the closing argument of the prosecutor was otherwise proper, and the trial court, in denying the motion for a new trial, stated that it was convinced the comments did not-prejudice defendant. Under all the circumstances, and applying the test of whether the error likely played a substantial part in influencing the jury to convict, we affirm. See, State v. Caron, 300 Minn. 123 , 218 N.W.2d 197 (1974), and State v. Prettyman, supra . Affirmed.