The solicitor says he withdraws that statement from you and says in his opinion he is guilty. Gentlemen, he has a right to his opinion, and has a right to express his opinion. Of course, he couldn't say anything as a fact, and lawyers in discussing cases, of course, express opinions, and they have a right to express them from the evidence in the case, and I overrule the motion for a mistrial. I see nothing in that that would indicate any reason for a new trial. While the quoted remarks of the solicitor, made in the course of his argument to the jury, even after the retraction and modification, might well have been omitted, they were evidently intended as being based upon the solicitor's conception of the evidence then before the jury, and were not such as to require a reversal of the cause.
Juries can and do, no doubt, properly evaluate such arguments.
It seems to be generally held by the authorities that prosecuting attorneys are entitled to make argumentative deductions from the evidence without transgressing bounds of legitimate argument. We cannot affirm error in this ruling of the court. It will also be noticed that the ruling sought by the defendant was not limited to an exclusion of the argument, and an instruction from the court to the jury to disregard it as being improper, but would require the withdrawal of the case from the jury, and the entering of a mistrial. The defendant was not entitled to such an order. Even if the argument, as modified, could be said to be improper, which we do not hold, no doubt the jury, on proper instructions from the court, would have disregarded the same.