Spence v. Delaware

Defendant-Below, Appellant, Christopher Spence, appealed a Superior Court Order denying his Motion for a Mistrial. This case arose out of a shooting that occurred during an event at a party venue in Wilmington. During the shooting, Spence shot and killed Kirt Williams, and shot and wounded Kelmar Allen. Because Spence admitted to shooting Williams and Allen, the case centered on: (1) whether the State could prove each element of the indicted charges beyond a reasonable doubt; (2) whether Spence was guilty of lesser included offenses; and (3) whether Spence had a viable justification defense, either self-defense or defense of others. Moments before closing argument, the State provided defense counsel with a black and white copy of the PowerPoint presentation it intended to use during summation. The version of the PowerPoint presentation displayed to the jury was in color. At the end of closing arguments, Spence’s counsel moved for a mistrial based on the alleged instances of prosecutorial misconduct. The trial court reserved ruling on the motion until after trial. In the Motion and the Memorandum, Spence raised, for the first time, objections to: (1) two PowerPoint slides which referred to the victims as “helpless;” (2) PowerPoint slides containing alleged misstatements of the justification defenses; and (3) a PowerPoint slide containing the statement that “[t]he defendant is guilty of all the charges against him[.]” The trial court denied the Motion. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed the ultimate holding of the trial court “based largely upon the well-reasoned Order denying Spence’s Motion.” View "Spence v. Delaware" on Justia Law