Case Title: Ex Parte Parker

Citation: 610 So. 2d 1181

Docket Number: 1911038

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 1992-10-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
610 So. 2d 1181 (1992)
Ex parte John Forrest PARKER.
(In re John Forrest Parker v. State of Alabama).
1911038.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
October 9, 1992.
Rehearing Denied December 4, 1992.
*1182 H. Thomas Heflin, Jr. of Munsey, Ford & Heflin, Tuscumbia, and Gene M. Hamby, Jr., Sheffield, for petitioner.
James H. Evans, Atty. Gen., and J. Thomas Leverette and Sandra J. Stewart, Asst. Attys. Gen., for respondent.
HOUSTON, Justice.
John Forrest Parker was convicted in the Circuit Court of Colbert County of capital murder and was sentenced to death. In a unanimous decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Parker's conviction and sentence. See Parker v. State, 587 So. 2d 1072 (Ala.Crim.App.1991), for a detailed statement of the case and the pertinent facts. On certiorari review, we affirm.
The Court of Criminal Appeals correctly resolved the numerous issues discussed in its opinion. We find it necessary to discuss only one of those issueswhether it was plain error for the prosecutors to personally vouch for the credibility of two of the state's primary witnesses.
Ronnie May, who was an investigator with the Colbert County Sheriff's Department and who had been the chief investigator in this case, sat with the prosecutors during the trial and helped them present the state's case. May also served as a witness for the state; he testified that Parker made to him a detailed statement relating the circumstances surrounding his activities at the Sennett residence on the day of the murder. May further testified as to the content of that statement. Because Parker had refused to give a signed statement or to allow May to tape record his statement, May had prepared notes after his interview with Parker, and he used those notes at trial to refresh his memory. Therefore, whether May's rendition of Parker's statement was credible was an important issue that had to be resolved by the jury. Parker contends that plain error occurred when the chief deputy district attorney, Mr. Hudson, made the following closing argument during the guilt phase of the trial:
Parker further contends that plain error occurred when the district attorney, Mr. Alverson, made the following closing argument in rebuttal during the guilt phase of the trial:
As the Court of Criminal Appeals correctly recognized in its opinion, 610 So. 2d 1171, the prosecutors' remarks were an improper attempt to bolster May's testimony by personally vouching for his credibility. Remarks such as these have been soundly condemned. See, e.g., Adams v. State, 280 Ala. 678, 198 So. 2d 255 (1967); Arthur v. State, 575 So. 2d 1165 (Ala.Crim. App.1990), cert. denied, 575 So. 2d 1191 (Ala.1991); King v. State, 518 So. 2d 191 (Ala.Crim.App.1987); Moseley v. State, 448 So. 2d 450 (Ala.Crim.App.1984); McGhee v. State, 41 Ala.App. 669, 149 So. 2d 1 (1962), aff'd, 274 Ala. 373, 149 So. 2d 5 (1963). In United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 18-19, 105 S. Ct. 1038, 1048, 84 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1985), the United States Supreme Court succinctly stated the dangers inherent in a prosecutor's vouching for the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses:
However, the Court of Criminal Appeals also correctly recognized that whether the prosecutors' remarks constituted plain error depended on whether those remarks, when viewed in the context of the entire closing argument and in the context of the entire trial, undermined the fundamental fairness of the trial and, thus, constituted a miscarriage of justice. See Ex parte Smith, 581 So. 2d 531, 532 (Ala.1991) ("`[p]lain error' exists when the error is so obvious that the failure to notice it would seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the proceedings ...; in other words, `plain error' exists when a substantial right of the defendant has or probably has been adversely affected"). In United States v. Young, supra, 470 U.S.  at 11, 12, 16, 105 S. Ct.  at 1044, 1045, 1047 the Court noted:
Considering these principles, we cannot say that the prosecutors' remarks rose to the level of plain error. Viewed in context, these remarks, although inappropriate and amounting to error, were not such as to undermine the fundamental fairness of the trial. This conclusion is based on our exhaustive review of the record, particularly the prosecutors' remarks during closing argument; May's testimony; Parker's statements and arguments that showed his theory of the case; and the trial court's oral charge to the jury.
Parker's theory of the case was essentially that Charles Sennett had hired Parker and Kenneth Smith to assault and threaten Sennett's wife, but not to kill her; that Parker and Smith had, in fact, gone to the Sennett residence on the day of the murder and had assaulted Mrs. Sennett; that the injuries received by Mrs. Sennett during the assault, although severe, were not necessarily life threatening; that Charles Sennett had come home shortly after the assault and killed his wife; and that Charles Sennett had committed suicide once he became a suspect in the case.
May testified on direct examination, in pertinent part, as follows:
May testified on cross-examination, in pertinent part, as follows:
Although Parker's attorneys attempted to cast doubt on certain parts of May's testimony by questioning him as to why he had not made more extensive notes following his interview with Parker, they primarily attempted to show that Parker's statement was basically consistent with Parker's theory of the case. One of Parker's attorneys stipulated during closing argument that Parker had gone to the Sennett residence with Smith on the day of the murder and that Parker and Smith had assaulted Mrs. Sennett. Parker's attorney argued to the jury that it could find from the evidence presented that Parker was not present at the Sennett residence at the time Mrs. Sennett was killed and that the survival knife was not the murder weapon. He further argued to the jury that, consistent with May's testimony, Charles Sennett, not Parker, had covered Mrs. Sennett's face with the afghan and then stabbed her to death, and that Charles Sennett had turned over the china cabinet in an attempt to make it appear more convincing that Mrs. Sennett had been killed during a burglary. Parker's attorney also suggested to the jury that Parker told May that Smith had stabbed Mrs. Sennett because, his attorney contended, Parker knew that he had not done it. In other words, Parker took the position that his statement to May was based on an assumption that because Mrs. Sennett had been stabbed on the day that he and Smith were at her house, then Smith must have stabbed her. A careful reading of May's testimony shows that it was not inconsistent with Parker's "assault" theory of the case.
Furthermore, the prosecutors told the jury that its decision should be based on the evidence. One of Parker's attorneys made the following statement to the jury during his closing argument: "Think about what you've heard from the witness stand. Remember what I had to say and what Mr. Hudson or Mr. Alverson are going to have to say is not evidence." In addition, the trial court had given the following instruction to the jury prior to the opening arguments: "[A]n attorney's statements and an attorney's arguments are not evidence and you should disregard any remark, statement, or argument which is not supported by the evidence or by the law as given to you by the court." Also, the trial court gave the following instruction immediately after the closing arguments:
We need not decide whether the prosecutors' remarks would have constituted plain error if May had testified that Parker had admitted to killing Mrs. Sennett. Suffice it to say that we agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that with regard to May *1187 the remarks, given their context, did not constitute plain error.
Teddy Lynn White, a convicted felon, testified that Parker had tried to buy a gun from him prior to the date on which Mrs. Sennett was murdered. White further testified that Parker told him at the time that he tried to buy the gun that he (Parker) had been hired to kill someone. One of Parker's attorneys sought to impeach White's testimony by eliciting from White the fact that White had been convicted of burglary; the fact that Parker's live-in girlfriend had had a child by White; and the fact that White was aware that Parker had previously provided information to the police concerning White's criminal activities. Therefore, whether White's testimony was credible was also an important issue that had to be resolved by the jury. Again, the Court of Criminal Appeals correctly recognized in its opinion that the prosecutors had made the remarks relating to the truthfulness of the state's witnesses in an improper attempt to bolster White's testimony by personally vouching for his credibility (as well as for May's), but that the remarks did not undermine the fundamental fairness of the trial. We agree with the Court of Criminal Appeals that with regard to White the prosecutors' remarks did not rise to the level of plain error. Although we do not condone their remarks, in personally vouching for the credibility of White neither prosecutor stated the witness's name, as Mr. Hudson did with respect to Investigator May. For this reason, and because of the clear admonitions given to the jury by the attorneys and the trial court to base its decision on the evidence alone and not on the statements made by the attorneys during closing arguments, we conclude that Parker's right to a fair trial was not adversely affected by the prosecutors' remarks.
Although we are acutely aware that "[a] criminal trial does not unfold like a play with actors following a script," Geders v. United States, 425 U.S. 80, 86, 96 S. Ct. 1330, 1334, 47 L. Ed. 2d 592 (1976), and that an attorney caught up in the passion of a jury argument may occasionally say too much, we nonetheless cannot overlook the fact that prosecutors must avoid making personal guarantees as to the credibility of the state's witnesses. Remarks such as those made by the prosecutors in this case constitute error and, under the appropriate circumstances, would require the reversal of a conviction.
The judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
HORNSBY, C.J., and MADDOX, SHORES, ADAMS, STEAGALL, KENNEDY and INGRAM, JJ., concur.