Jennings v. State

I concur with the majority that the trial court properly denied Jennings’s motion for judgment of acquittal. However, I believe the State’s improper closing argument necessitated a mistrial and the trial court abused its discretion in denying the mistrial request. I therefore must respectfully dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion.

The prosecutor’s closing argument im-permissibly suggested to the jury that there was extra-record evidence of Jennings’s guilt5, and argued that Jennings had demanded a speedy trial6 in a calculated effort to prevent this evidence from being presented…