Title: State v. Salitros

State: minnesota

Issuer: Minnesota Supreme Court

Document:

499 N.W.2d 815 (1993) STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. John George SALITROS, Petitioner, Appellant. No. C9-92-1105. Supreme Court of Minnesota. May 14, 1993. *816 Melissa Sheridan, Asst. State Public Defender, St. Paul, for appellant. Hubert H. Humphrey, III, Atty. Gen., St. Paul, and Robert M.A. Johnson, Anoka County Atty., M. Katherine Doty, Asst. County Atty., Anoka, for respondent. Considered and decided by the court en banc without oral argument. COYNE, Justice. The court of appeals, in an unpublished decision, affirmed defendant's convictions of burglary and theft for unlawfully entering an apartment building storage room with some friends and stealing appliances and other items. Although defendant's counsel did not object to improper statements made by the prosecutor in closing argument, the statements in question plainly constituted serious misconduct. Normally we grant relief for plain error only if the plain error is of a prejudicial nature. However, we have made it clear that if prosecutors persist in making improper statements such as those made in this case, we will not hesitate, in an appropriate case, to make the prosecutor try the case over again. See, e.g., State v. Merrill, 428 N.W.2d 361, 373 (Minn.1988). We do so here. 1. An attorney representing a client at trial is an advocate but, as an officer of the court, cannot be a zealot or mouthpiece. The attorney's role is to help insure that the client's case is decided not on the basis of extraneous matters but on the basis of evidence relevant to the issues raised and the legitimate inferences from that evidence. The role of the trial judge *817 complements the role of counsel. The trial judge is not a passive moderator at a free-for-all. The trial judge is the administrator of justice and has an affirmative obligation to keep counsel within bounds and to insure that the case is decided on the basis of relevant evidence and the proper inferences therefrom, not on the basis of irrelevant or prejudicial matters. In a criminal trial the prosecutor may not seek convictions at any price. Rather, the prosecutor is a "minister of justice" whose obligation is "to guard the rights of the accused as well as to enforce the rights of the public." I ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, The Prosecution Function 3-1.1 and Commentary at 3.7 (2 ed. 1979). Correspondingly, defense counsel is neither a mouthpiece nor an ordinary agent, but a professional advocate governed by rules of professional ethics and decorum. I ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, The Defense Function 4-1.1 and Commentary at 4.8-9 (2 ed. 1979). The trial judge "has the responsibility for safeguarding both the rights of the accused and the interests of the public in the administration of criminal justice." I ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Special Functions of the Trial Judge 6-1.1 (2 ed. 1979). "The adversary nature of the proceedings does not relieve the trial judge of the obligation of raising on his or her initiative, at all appropriate times and in an appropriate manner, matters which may significantly promote a just determination of the trial." Id. One of the most frequently raised issues in criminal appeals is the issue of misconduct by prosecutors in closing argument. Any attempt to solve the problem has to start with the recognition that misconduct in closing argument is not confined to prosecutorial misconduct. Because only convicted defendants can appeal, this court in opinions tends to focus on prosecutorial misconduct. However, this court is aware from reading transcripts of trials that the problem is not limited to the prosecution. Indeed, we have emphasized in our opinions "that prosecutors and defense counsel alike have an ethical responsibility to avoid making improper closing arguments." State v. Kirvelay, 311 Minn. 201, 202, 248 N.W.2d 310, 311 (1976). In the interest of educating both prosecutors and defense attorneys, some of whom may be relatively new to the profession, we here reprint in their entirety the respective ABA Standards dealing with appropriate and inappropriate closing arguments to the jury by prosecutors and by defense attorneys: The standards, of course, are not a complete and detailed guide as to what is appropriate and inappropriate. Rather, they provide a general outline of what is appropriate and inappropriate. As the issue of misconduct in closing argument is so frequently litigated, our cases should be looked to for a more detailed explication of what is appropriate and what is inappropriate. With this overview, we turn to the specific issues raised by the prosecutor's closing argument in this case. (a) As long ago as 1933 we began admonishing trial courts and prosecutors not to state that constitutional rights such as the presumption of innocence are only for the benefit of the innocent and not to shield the guilty. State v. Bauer, 189 Minn. 280, 284, 249 N.W. 40, 42 (1933). Forty-three years later, in State v. Thomas, 307 Minn. 229, 231, 239 N.W.2d 455, 457 (1976), we said that prosecutors had failed to heed what we said in Bauer and expressly added that "henceforth it will be grounds for reversal for the court to charge or the prosecutor to argue that a defendant's constitutional rights `are meant to protect the innocent but not to shield the guilty.'" In this case the prosecutor resurrected the statement condemned in Bauer and Thomas, saying (ii) at the outset of closing argument that the constitutional rights which kick in when someone is charged with a crime are designed for the purpose of protecting the innocent and (ii) later that those constitutional rights that apply to everybody "are designed to protect the innocent * * * [and] have never been designed as a shield for the guilty * * *." (b) We have made it clear that the prosecutor is free to specifically argue that there is no merit to a particular defense in view of the evidence or no merit to a particular argument, see State v. Kirvelay, 311 Minn. 201, 248 N.W.2d 310 (1976), and prosecutors are of course free to make arguments that reasonably anticipate arguments defense counsel will make in closing argument. But in a number of cases we have cautioned prosecutors against generally belittling a particular defense in the abstract, as by saying, e.g., "That's the sort of defense that defendants raise when nothing else will work." See State v. Bettin, 309 Minn. 578, 244 N.W.2d 652 (1976). It is clearly improper for a prosecutor to suggest that the arguments of defense counsel are part of some sort of syndrome of standard arguments that one finds defense counsel making in "cases of this sort." That, however, is precisely what the prosecutor did in this case: (c) In State v. Montjoy, 366 N.W.2d 103, 108-09 (Minn.1985), we criticized the following argument by a prosecutor to the jury to think about "accountability": We said: 366 N.W.2d at 109. In other words, the jury's role is not to enforce the law or teach defendants lessons or make statements to the public or to "let the word go forth"; its role is limited to deciding dispassionately whether the state has met its burden in the case at hand of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecutor in this case made an argument similar to, almost identical to, the argument quoted above that was made in Montjoy: 2. Over the years we have reversed a number of convictions on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument even though defense counsel did not object to the statements. See Minn.R.Evid. 103(d) (making it clear that a court may take notice of errors in fundamental law or of plain errors affecting substantial rights even in the absence of objection by counsel). Generally, however, in those cases we have been able to say that the misconduct was prejudicial. See, e.g., State v. Davis, 305 Minn. 539, 233 N.W.2d 561 (1975). However, we have also made it clear to prosecutors who persist in employing such tactics that we retain the option of reversing prophylactically. See, e.g., State v. Merrill, 428 N.W.2d 361, 373 (Minn.1988). This power to reverse prophylactically or in the interests of justice comes from our power to supervise the trial courts. See, e.g., State v. Kaiser, 486 N.W.2d 384, 387 (Minn.1992), where we reversed because the prosecutor failed to disclose evidence that should have been disclosed. In Kaiser we reversed even though we were not able to say that the failure to disclose prejudiced the defendant. We said: 486 N.W.2d at 387. Just as in Kaiser, in the exercise of our supervisory power over the trial courts and in the interests of justice, we reverse this defendant's conviction and remand for a new trial. Reversed and remanded for new trial.