Hearsay; People v. Mesik (On Reconsideration); Mistrial; People v. Kelly; Abandoned issue; People v. Harris; People v. Waclawski

Holding that defendant’s claim that a witness’s testimony was inadmissible hearsay failed and he abandoned the mistrial issue, the court affirmed. He was convicted of CSC I and II. Defendant argued that rebuttal witness-K’s (from the Children’s Advocacy Center) “testimony was inadmissible hearsay, was irrelevant, and was unfairly prejudicial, and” thus, should not have been admitted. However, defendant’s argument was meritless because “the trial court did not allow the testimony to be admitted into evidence and in fact sustained defendant’s objection and ordered that the jury disregard the testimony. The trial court gave a very thorough and explanatory jury instruction explaining why such testimony was inadmissible.” For these reasons, the argument failed. Moreover, even if the court read his “argument on appeal as being that the trial court erred by declining to grant a mistrial,” he did not provide any supporting case law. Thus, he abandoned the issue. Although he did not raise, or “abandoned, the argument that the trial court erred by denying a mistrial,” the court noted in any event that K’s testimony “constituted an isolated comment that was not repeated or explored further.” The testimony in question “was comprised of an unresponsive, volunteered answer to a proper question. Moreover, the trial court gave a comprehensive curative jury instruction. Therefore, even if defendant had raised such an argument, under these circumstances we would find no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion for a mistrial.”