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191 A.2d 353

Docket Ex. No. 10363.

State v. Brown

STATE v. Vincent R. BROWN.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island

Decided June 3, 1963.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island · decided 1963-06-03

Relies on Marley v. Providence Journal Co. · Renault v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1963-06-03

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently March 1990

3 state decisions

101963197019801990decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*354 J. Joseph Nugent, Atty. Gen., Corinne P. Grande, Sp. Counsel, for State.

¶2Leo Patrick McGowan, Public Defender, for defendant.

¶3PER CURIAM.

¶4After our decision in the above case the defendant asked for and received permission to file a motion for reargument. Pursuant thereto he has filed such a motion, setting out therein certain reasons on which he bases his contention that justice requires a reargument of the case. We have carefully considered those reasons and we are of the opinion that they are without merit.

¶5In support of his motion, defendant contends that we overlooked the holding of this court in Renault v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co., R.I., 167 A.2d 239, wherein we found that the denial of the defendnat's motion for a mistrial was prejudicial.

¶6He argues that the rationale of this court in reaching its decision was premised on the proposition that if prejudice exists it is reversible error without regard to the degree of prejudice. We are substantially in accord with this proposition. But defendant goes further and equates all error with prejudice. This presupposes that error and prejudice are necessarily synonymous. Such, however, is not the rule. See Marley v. Providence Journal Co., 86 R.I. 229, 134 A.2d 180. In Marley we found the denial of the motion to be prejudicial; hence, reversible error. In the case at bar, however, we hold the ruling of the trial justice, if error, not to be prejudicial; hence, not reversible.

¶7In the instant case we clearly implied, and we now hold, that although the trial justice may have misconceived the purpose for which a transcript was used, such miconception was not prejudicial to the defendant. Our decision in the Renault case is readily distinguishable from the case at bar; therefore, it is not in point.

¶8Motion denied.

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