State v. Michael T.

Summary

The court affirmed the defendant’s convictions and sixty-year effective sentence, concluding that the prosecutor’s questioning and closing and rebuttal arguments did not constitute prosecutorial impropriety or deprive him of a fair trial. It also held that the trial court was permitted, but not required, to use the defendant’s requested alternative wording for the no-adverse-inference instruction, and that the statutory phrase “failure to testify” was not unconstitutional. D’Auria, J., concurring, agreed with the judgment and reasoning but urged legislative clarification or supervisory guidance concerning the preferred wording of the instruction.