People v. Laforte, Docket No. 25025
| Decision Date | 16 May 1977 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 25025 |
| Citation | 75 Mich.App. 582,256 N.W.2d 44 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Raymond M. LaFORTE, Jr., Defendant-Appellant. 75 Mich.App. 582, 256 N.W.2d 44 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
[75 MICHAPP 582] BeGole, Lukomski, Maddock & MacDonald by Lawrence B. MacDonald, Detroit, for defendant-appellant.
Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., William L. Cahalan, Pros. Atty., Edward R. Wilson, Appellate Chief, Robert E. Edick, Asst. Pros. Atty., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before R. B. BURNS, P. J., and T. M. BURNS and RILEY, JJ.
[75 MICHAPP 583] RILEY, Judge.
A jury convicted defendant of breaking and entering a building with intent to commit larceny. M.C.L.A. § 750.110; M.S.A. § 28.305. He appeals and we reverse.
This case is but a variation on tired themes orchestrated many times before by the instant trial prosecutor. Once again the prosecutor has devoted lengthy portions of his cross-examination and summation to areas only marginally relevant but clearly prejudicial. Specifically, the prosecutor elicited from defendant and a defense witness a dollar-by-dollar account of their expenditures prior to the alleged crime, and stressed defendant's poverty and lack of employment as a means of supplying a motive. Furthermore, the prosecutor by none-too-subtle questioning brought out defendant's extramarital sexual dalliances ostensively to show defendant's lack of credibility.
During defendant's cross-examination defense counsel objected but once to the foregoing line of questioning. The objection, awkwardly phrased, was overruled. After the prosecutor's summation, defendant's attorney requested a mistrial based in part on the prosecutor's repeated emphasis of defendant's unemployment. The trial court, although acknowledging that he had earlier instructed the prosecutor to "dampen" the interrogation on the question of poverty, nonetheless refused to order a mistrial.
In People v. Jones, 73 Mich.App. 107, 109-110, 251 N.W.2d 264, 265 (1976), a case prosecuted by this same prosecutor, we observed:
This Court held, however, that defendant Jones's failure to register a prompt objection to the questioning precluded our review under the largely unstated circumstances of that case.
Since Jones, many convicted defendants, tried by the instant attorney for the state, have appeared before this Court successfully alleging an identical form of prosecutorial misconduct. See, e. g., People v. Green, 74...
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