P. v. Collins CA3
A trial court has discretion when ruling on a motion for a mistrial, but it must properly exercise that discretion. In this case, after less than one full day of testimony, defense counsel moved for a mistrial based on her admitted failure to investigate a potentially viable mental state defense. Counsel’s direct supervisor and, more importantly, the trial court, agreed that recordings of 911 calls--provided to counsel in discovery, well before trial--should have alerted her to this issue. We have listened to these recordings and agree that any reasonable criminal defense attorney would immediately have understood this evidence raised serious questions about defendant’s mental state, requiring investigation. But the trial court characterized the issue it had to decide as whether or not it had a duty to “bail out” defense counsel, instead of protecting defendant’s right to a fair trial, including the effective assistance of counsel. In these rare circumstances, we find th
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