A man serving 33½ years to life for second-degree murder and a weapons charge was granted a retrial yesterday by an appeals court that determined that miscues by both the prosecutor and the defense cost the defendant a fair trial. A unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, Second Department, ruled in People v. McArthur, 2009-06796, that its interest-of-justice review of comments made during summation by the prosecutor in James McArthur’s 2009 trial in Suffolk County Court contained inappropriate suggestions that McArthur’s silence when questioned by police reflected his guilt. The panel said in its unsigned ruling that McArthur had a constitutional right to remain silent at the time of his arrest and that the exercise of that right cannot be used against him by the prosecution as part of its direct case.
Among the improper remarks cited by the appeals judgeand unchallenged by the defensewas the prosecutor’s observation to jurors that McArthur appeared to be “disappointed” when he was arrested and “distracted’ when he was being transported to the police station. The prosecutor called his demeanor “the reaction of a guilty man who knows he’s been caught.”
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