State of Tennessee v. Benjamin Hartshaw

The Defendant, Benjamin Hartshaw, was convicted by a Rutherford County Circuit Court jury of six counts of rape of a child, a Class A felony, and four counts of aggravated sexual battery, a Class B felony, for which he is serving an effective forty-six-year sentence. See T.C.A. §§ 39-13-504(a)(4) (2018) (aggravated sexual battery of a victim less than thirteen years of age), 39-13-522(a) (2018) (rape of a child). On appeal, the Defendant contends that (1) the trial court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial after one of the prosecutors referred in closing argument to the Defendant’s having been “arrested and . . . put in jail,” (2) the court erred in giving a curative instruction, contrary to the defense request for no instruction, and (3) he is entitled to relief due to cumulative trial error. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.