State v. Lang, 2015 ND 181

Dallas Lang was charged with felonious restraint (class C felony) and tried by jury; convicted and sentenced to 30 months (12 suspended) plus 3 years probation.
During voir dire, a prospective juror (former State’s Attorney Office employee) volunteered that domestic-violence victims often change their stories while describing prior work researching expert testimony; defense objected and sidebar was held.
The court stopped the questioning, agreed the juror’s comments were inappropriate, and eventually struck the prospective juror for cause based on prior employment with the State’s Attorney Office.
Lang moved for a mistrial after jury selection and later renewed the motion after verdict and at sentencing, arguing the juror’s statements poisoned the jury pool; the court denied each motion.
Lang also requested a curative instruction to tell the jury to ignore the voir dire statements but abandoned that request during trial; on appeal he pressed both the mistrial and curative-instruction issues.
The North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed, holding the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying mistrial and did not commit obvious error by not giving a curative instruction.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Lang)	Held
Whether district court abused discretion in denying mistrial after prospective juror made statements about domestic-violence victims changing stories	Statements were promptly objected to, questioning stopped, juror later excused; comments were not so inflammatory to prejudice trial	Voir dire comments by a juror who worked with prosecutor’s offices poisoned the jury pool and could have influenced verdict	Denied: Court did not abuse discretion; no manifest injustice shown and no evidence of jury prejudice
Whether failure to give curative instruction was reversible error	General jury instruction to decide on trial evidence sufficed; defense abandoned specific request during trial	Failure to instruct jury to disregard the voir dire remarks created obvious error affecting substantial rights	Denied: Review for obvious error fails; no exceptional circumstances or serious injustice shown

State v. Doll, 812 N.W.2d 381 (N.D. 2012) (standard for mistrial review and abuse of discretion)
State v. Skarsgard, 739 N.W.2d 786 (N.D. 2007) (mistrial is an extreme remedy reserved for fundamental defects)
State v. Nikle, 708 N.W.2d 867 (N.D. 2006) (prospective juror comments did not prejudice defendant where comments were limited and juror affirmed impartiality)
Mach v. Stewart, 137 F.3d 630 (9th Cir. 1997) (prospective juror’s repeated statements on child-victim veracity may amount to impermissible expert testimony)
United States v. Small, 423 F.3d 1164 (10th Cir. 2005) (trial court not necessarily required to dismiss panel after a single prejudicial juror remark)
State v. Klose, 657 N.W.2d 276 (N.D. 2003) (quotation on when mistrial is appropriate)