State v. Dari Garcia

Syllabus

The defendant, Dari Garcia, appealed from a May 3, 2018 judgment of conviction and commitment following a jury trial held in the Superior Court for Providence County. The defendant was charged with fifteen counts pertaining to several events that took place in a particular house in North Providence, Rhode Island, on August 17, 2014 . On appeal, the defendant presented nine grounds for reversal of his conviction . He contended that: (1) the trial justice erred in allowing the state to strike a particular prospective juror, in alleged violation of the principles established in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) (2) the trial justice impermissibly allowed into evidence certain testimony of a law enforcement officer (3) the trial justice erred in limiting the cross-examination of a witness and excluding the evidence of her drug use (4) the trial justice erred in allowing two brothers to testify at trial whom she later held in contempt of court, and in holding a third brother in contempt of court in the presence of the jury (5) the trial justice \impermissibly aided the prosecution\ (6) Count Two and Count Five of the indictment merged for double jeopardy purposes (7) the defendant's convictions on Count Six and Count Seven violated the double jeopardy clause (8) certain statements made by the prosecutor in her closing argument were unduly prejudicial and (9) the trial justice's sentencing of defendant resulted in a \de facto life without parole sentence without the necessary statutory protections .\ The Supreme Court concluded that the trial justice did not err in overruling the defendant's Batson objection to the state's peremptory challenge . The Court also held that the trial justice's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress was not clearly erroneous and that Count Six and Count Seven did not merge pursuant to double jeopardy principles . The Court further determined that the following issues were waived on appeal: (1) the limiting of the cross-examination o