Bland v. Hardy

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying defendant's habeas petition challenging his murder conviction on grounds that prosecutor violated his due process rights by taking advantage of wrong date supplied by defendant during his testimony with respect to confiscation of his gun where, accoreding to defendant, prosecutor improperly claimed during closing argument that defendant had motive to steal another gun. Defendant could not assert violation of rule against prosecutor's use of known false testimony where: (1) prosecutor is generally not forbidden to exploit errors in testimony adduced by defendant; and (2) defendant could have corrected his own misstatement of fact. Moreover, prosecutor did not violate due process clause by eliciting from witness fact that defendant had abruptly stopped answering questions during interrogation by making loud noise where: (1) record showed that defendant had cooperated by police by voluntarily answering other questions leading up to abrupt refusal to answer any more questions; and (2) govt. could properly argue that said silence demonstrated truth or falsity of defendant's prior answers.