Are the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments violated by a trial court's refusal to grant a mistrial where a prosecution witness injects groundless, irrelevant, and inflammatory bad act testimony, and the resulting prejudice was neither cured nor curable?

QUESTION PRESENTED This case presents a question of significant importance calling for summary reversal. A trial court’s authority to declare a mistrial implicates some of the most fundamental rights a criminal defendant has: the right to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment, see United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, 548 U.S. 140, 145 (2006) (“the purpose of the rights set forth in {the Sixth] Amendment is to ensure a fair trial”), and to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 684-685 (1985) (“The Constitution guarantees a fair trial through the Due Process Clauses”). And yet, reviewing courts in Massachusetts have adopted a standard so deferential as to grant unlimited discretion to trial judges who deny motions for mistrial that ought to be allowed. This case epitomizes the danger of such a jurisprudence. Here, in a prosecution for rape, a prosecution witness nonresponsively testified to groundless, irrelevant, and inflammatory bad act evidence in utter disregard of an agreed-to in limine ruling, and the prosecutor’s corresponding instructions to the witness (and even in disregard of the court’s direct admonition to properly answer yes-or-no questions). Among other things, this witness made uncorroborated claims that the defendant possessed a gun, asserted that threats were made to the complainant (her daughter) with that same nonii existent gun, and speculated that threats were made to the complainant with the gun (a claim that the complainant herself did not substantiate). Defense counsel raised immediate objections and moved for a mistrial. The trial court denied the motion. Now in an impossible strategic situation, counsel sought to lessen the blow by further cross-examination, only to have the witness give another non-responsive, and more inflammatory, answer — to the effect that the defendant’s gun ownership was spawned by his hatred of “people of color.” Trial counsel again contended that a fair trial was impossible. The prosecutor asked the court not to mistry the case, and the court pushed forward without providing a curative instruction until the following day. The trial ended in the defendant’s conviction. It cannot be consonant with constitutional principles that this sequence of events withstands meaningful appellate review. But in Massachusetts, reviewing courts seem to take a certain pride in their refusal to reverse a trial judge’s decision to deny a motion for mistrial. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Silva, 93 Mass. App. Ct. 609, 615-616 (2018) (“the defendant has not pointed to a single Massachusetts case, and we have found none, where an appellate court has concluded that a mistrial was required because the jury would not be able to disregard evidence they were instructed to disregard”). Such a stance iii trenches upon Constitutional rights and the Federal law that flows from it. The question presented is: Are the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments violated by a trial court’s refusal to grant a mistrial where a prosecution witness injects groundless, irrelevant, and inflammatory bad act testimony, and the resulting prejudice was neither cured nor curable? iv