People v. Evans

During a bench trial, after the State closed both its case-in chief and rebuttal case, Court stated that it wanted to see the wallet involved and granted the State a continuance to admit the wallet into evidence. After conviction, Defendant appealed arguing that Court departed from the role of a neutral magistrate and took on the role of a prosecutor when it requested the State to present corroborating evidence. Court did not abuse its discretion in requesting to see the evidence. Court’s request was not an extraordinary course of action, and was done in a fair and impartial manner. Since it was a bench trial, Court possessed wide latitude, the question related to its fact-finding role, and the risk of prejudice to Defendant was low.