Prosecutors stepped over the line by comparing a New Jersey drug defendant’s case to the HBO series “The Wire,” the state’s highest court ruled.
Police launched “Operation That’s All Folks” to combat a wave of gun violence in Millville. Their investigation led to a wiretap on the phone of Gerald W. Butler.
He was arrested and charged with drug and weapons-related offenses. The prosecutor’s opening statement includes references to the TV show and how the organized crimes required police to obtain a wire tap on a defendant’s phone.
“Very much like the show ‘The Wire,’ sometimes the targets tell on themselves,” the prosecutor concluded. “So as you’re listening to all of the other witnesses, … you’re going to hear the texts and also listen to the calls, what is he telling you about what he is doing?”
Butler’s attorney’s objection that these references were “over the top” were overruled.
He was convicted of conspiracy, distribution, and possession of controlled dangerous substances.
Butler appealed, citing the references to “The Wire” and the state’s suggestion that he was part of an organized crime network.
The Appellate Division upheld the decision, but the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned it and remanded the case for a new trial.
Justice Noriega noted that Butler “was not identified as a primary participant in the city’s outbreak of violence.”
“The reference (to ‘The Wire’) invited jurors to associate defendant with violent criminal conduct – an association untethered to the evidence that created a risk of distracting the jury from its obligation to assess guilt based solely on the facts presented at trial,” he wrote.
He also cited the prosecutor’s reference in the closing argument to the “investigation, which you knew was about gun violence in the city of Millville.”
Noriega also stated that the state violated its agreement to limit its reference to “lawful searches” by calling Butler the “target” of a search warrant.
“Although we do not find any of the individual errors that Butler alleges requires his convictions be overturned, we conclude that the accumulation of errors in this case deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial,” he wrote.
