Wagner v. State

The prosecutor in this case made repeated comments in closing argument that a witness to the crime had been afraid of the defendant, Bruce Wagner, but no testimony in the record supported those statements. The trial court sustained one of defense counsel’s objections to the comments, and it overruled the remaining objections and denied Wagner’s motion for a mistrial. The prosecutor’s arguments about the witness’s fear were erroneous because they were unsupported by any evidence placed before the jury or by any reasonable inference from the evidence.

“It has been uniformly held that counsel…