State v. Hayes
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The Supreme Court reversed Defendant's conviction of incest, holding that the district court abused its discretion by allowing the jury to hear during deliberations portions of a victim's taped forensic interview after those portions of the interview had been played to the jury during trial.
On appeal, Defendant argued that the district court erred when it played portions of the victim's forensic interview two times to the jury - at trial and during jury deliberations. Specifically, Defendant argued that the court erred when it allowed the jury to hear the interview without first isolating the jury's difficulty concerning the evidence. The Supreme Court agreed, holding that the district court abused its discretion by failing to isolate the jury's difficulty during deliberations before allowing the jury to watched portions of the video testimony in the jury room and that the error resulted in prejudice to Defendant.
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