Commonwealth v. Rivera

JOHNSON, Judge:

We are asked to decide whether defense counsel’s mere asking of a question to a Commonwealth witness at trial, without more, would support the trial court’s finding of “manifest necessity” to declare a mistrial, where the issue is witness credibility and the witness has not responded to the question. We hold that manifest necessity did not exist to justify the trial court’s declaration of a mistrial. Therefore, we reverse the trial court’s denial of John Rivera’s motion to dismiss the criminal information against him following the trial court’s grant of a mistrial upon the…