Kenneth won a stellar victory for his client this morning. On appeal, defendant (by and through the Collective) argued that a trial judge had committed error in denying her the right to make a closing argument. Closing argument is an extremely important part of a trial where a defendant and their lawyer finally get to argue their defense. The human rights embodied in our state constitution win again! Check it out here.
Here, when the trial court unequivocally ruled that it would not entertain closing argument and announced its decision, any additional effort to request or offer a closing argument would have been futile. We conclude that defendant was not required to do anything further to preserve her objection to the denial of closing argument. And with the denial of closing argument, defendant had no ability to present the facts in the best light and to attempt to dissuade the trial court from rejecting testimony favorable to defendant, as the trial court indicated it would do based on credibility when it disallowed closing argument. Accordingly, the “trial itself was affected in this case because the court denied one of its required elements[,]” Lovins, 177 Or App at 538, and that denial substantially affected defendant’s rights.
Reversed and remanded.
