Bell v. State

Benham, Justice.

Appellant Deric Bell was found guilty of trafficking in heroin and sentenced to life imprisonment. After reserving her objections to the trial court’s instructions to the jury, defense counsel sought a mistrial on the ground that the prosecutor had injected prejudicial matters not in evidence by making reference to a drug-related, execution-style *777triple murder and to a serial rapist in her closing argument. The Court of Appeals affirmed appellant’s conviction (Bell v. State, 208 Ga. App. 201 (430 SE2d 124) (1993)), and we granted certiorari to consider whether the prosecutor’s…