Defendant was convicted of burglary, rape, two counts of aggravated sodomy and aggravated assault. Following the imposition of sentеnce, he appealed. Held:
1. The victim was attacked in the middle of the night by an assailant wielding a knife. The assailant stated that he had been drinking. He raped and sodomized the victim and threatened to cut her with the knife and to kill her.
The victim was a neighbor of defendant’s mother. She had known defendant since he was a child because her son and defendant were friends.
Defendant was living with his mother when the victim was attacked. Shortly after the attack on the victim, defendant told his brother-in-law that he had gotten drunk and woke up in the morning with a knife by his side. He speculated that he might have killed or *572 raped somebody. That led defendant’s mother to ask defendant if he had anything to do with the attack on the victim. He said that he did nоt.
Approximately three weeks after the victim was attacked, defendant started quarreling with his mother. He had been drinking and thought that his mother had intеrfered with his relationship with a girl friend. Defendant turned over a table, smashed a microwave, and picked up a butcher knife. He ran outside and slashed the tires on his mother’s automobile. Returning inside, he threw his mother down on the living room couch and held the knife to her chest. He threatenеd to kill her and hollered, “Hell, yes, I raped the bitch.” At that point, defendant’s brother entered the room with a loaded shotgun. The shotgun went oif and thе discharge hit the floor. Defendant charged his brother who hit him over the head with the shotgun and took away the knife. Then defendant ran away, hollеring: “I’ll kill the old bitch.”
Defendant acknowledges that the statements he made to his mother and brother were admissible in evidence. He asserts, however, that the circumstances surrounding the statements were inadmissible. In that regard, defendant insists that the subsequent events which took place at his mother’s house are not similar to the crimes charged against him. He argues that the trial court erred in admitting the events surrounding the statements into evidеnce because they are not similar transactions.
Defendant’s argument misses the mark. The events which took place at defendant’s mоther’s house were not admitted as similar transaction evidence. On the contrary, the trial court admitted the evidence to show the totality of the circumstances surrounding defendant’s statements.
The trial court did not err in admitting into evidence the events leading up to and surrounding defendаnt’s statements. The jurors would have been hard pressed to assess the statements if they heard them in a vacuum. They needed to know if the statemеnts were made voluntarily. See
Phillips v. State,
The mere fact that defendant may have been prejudiced by the totality of the circumstances surrounding the making of the statements is of no consequence. The circumstances were admissible whether or not they introduced evidence of other crimes. See
Ledford v. State,
*573
2. The trial court did not err in permitting the victim to identify defendant — during rebuttal and after defendant took the stand and testified — based on the sound of defendant’s voice. The victim’s in-court voice identificаtion of defendant in rebuttal was admissible.
Stith v. State,
3. During closing argument, defense counsel objected and moved for a mistrial in response to the following remarks made by the State’s attorney: “They noted we have paid prosecutors. Well, yes, there are paid prosecutors. There are also apрointed attorneys to represent defendants, such as [defense counsel here], paid for by the same people that pay us. There are also defense experts that testify for defendants. They are also paid by the State, by the people that provide the appointed attorneys; by you, so that he may have a fair trial.” The trial court offered to give a detailed curative instruction but defense counsel declined the offer, fearing that it would only serve to emphasize the State’s argument. Instead, defendant insisted that he be grantеd a mistrial. The trial court denied the motion, but sustained defendant’s objection to the argument, instructing the jury “to disregard the last remarks of counsel for the State.”
Defendant asserts the trial court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial. We disagree.
“ ‘(T)his court has repeatedly held that if the trial judge аcts immediately, and in the exercise of his discretion takes such action as in his judgment prevents harm to the accused as a result of such improper statements, a new trial will not be granted unless it is clear that such action failed to eliminate from the consideration of the jury such improper statements.
Brown v. State,
4. The State’s expert on deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) identification testified that there was a five-probe mаtch between DNA in the semen recovered from the victim and defendant’s DNA. He also testified that the chances that the semen recovеred from the victim belonged to someone other than defendant were one in seventy million, or conservatively one in 10 million. (Defendant’s DNA еxpert opined that the odds were one in thirty million.) The State’s expert based his calculation on a crime laboratory DNA data base made up of 500 blacks and 300 whites.
Defendant asserts the trial court erred in admitting evidencе concerning the frequency that defendant’s DNA pattern can be found in the population because the State’s statistical analysis was based on a small, random sample sent to the crime laboratory. In that regard, he points out that larger, national data bases are in the process of being put together. He argues that until there is a larger data base and a consensus on an accepted stаtistical method, statistical calculations concerning chromosome pattern frequencies should be ruled inadmissible. We disagree.
The State’s expert described in great detail how the data base was compiled and why assumptions based on the data base were valid. Compare
Caldwell v. State,
Judgment affirmed.