Case Name: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Valeria Louise Chrystal WILLIAMS, Appellant
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1979-04-09
Citations: 373 So. 2d 1278
Docket Number: No. 63133
Parties: STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Valeria Louise Chrystal WILLIAMS, Appellant.
Judges: SUMMERS, C. J., concurs for the reasons assigned.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 373
Pages: 1278–1284

Head Matter:
STATE of Louisiana, Appellee, v. Valeria Louise Chrystal WILLIAMS, Appellant.
No. 63133.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
April 9, 1979.
Dissenting Opinion Sept. 7, 1979.
Leila S. Withers, Withers & Withers, Baton Rouge, for defendant-appellant.
William J. Guste, Jr., Atty. Gen., Barbara Rutledge, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ossie B. Brown,. Dist. Atty., Mary B. Gilliland, Asst. Dist. Atty., for plain tiff-appellee.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
The accused and a co-defendant were convicted of theft, La. R.S. 14:67, and received a suspended sentence, conditioned on restitution of $211 to the department store from which certain goods were stolen.
On her appeal, the accused relies upon one assignment of error. The assignment relates to improper closing rebuttal argument by the prosecutor.
Context Facts
The accused, Miss Williams, and her co-defendant, Sedric Rogers, are charged with the theft of four pantsuits from a department store. They escaped, after chase, at the time of the theft.
The young black couple was arrested when, on the following day, they returned to the department store. Two store employees recognized them as the same couple that had stolen the pantsuits the previous day.
In explaining how she had recognized the co-defendant Rogers, one of the store employees testified that she particularly remembered his distinctive features as "[fjirst of all, he is rather tall and thin, and secondly the protruding lips."
The defense was alibi and mistaken identification. The stolen goods were never recovered. The state's case essentially depends on whether the two white store employees correctly identified the black couple that entered the store as the same couple that had stolen the pantsuits the day before.
Argument of Counsel
After the evidence closed, the prosecutor made his closing argument to the six-person jury. Then, in the course of defense counsel's closing argument, the following statement was made:
"Now my whole problem is that I know that you probably believe that store personnel don't have anything to gain by innocently accusing somebody of something but racism still exists in our society. You know, a lot of people say that all black people look alike and I don't — I don't really appreciate the statement, but a lot of people feel that way. Now, Mrs. Narozniak was saying and Mrs. Jones also, that Sedric Rogers has protruding lips. Well I'm sure you can look at me right now and you'll tell me now what you think my distinguishing feature is also. Probably, my nose, you know. And I can look at each one of you and tell you what I think stands out about you but don't you think that perhaps there might be a person that has that same distinguishing feature. You know, and you see people all the time and you say, wow, I bet that so and so is related to so and so, just because of how they look. Now, Baton Rouge is a small — real big area and has a substantial black population and a lot of blacks do business at Dillards and I'm sure a lot of blacks go through there day in and day and night. And, our position is that Mrs. Narozniak and Mrs. Jones just saw two people that resembled Sedric Rogers and Valeria Chrystal."
In his rebuttal to defense counsel's argument, the prosecutor argued:
"Ladies and gentlemen I get to talk to you very very briefly again and the reason that I do is because the State does have the burden of proof in this case. We get a chance to rebut whatever the defense says in closing argument. Something came up in the closing argument that I hated to see arise and I ordinarily wouldn't even honor this comment but I am this time. And that's the subject of race. I don't think it had any place in this trial and I tried to avoid it and always try to avoid it. And I suppose it was aimed at you Mr. Scott and you.Mr. Lucas since you are the two black people on this jury. But, let me remind you Mr. Scott it was not me that wanted to remove you from this jury because you would sleep through it. It was defense counsel — "
The defense counsel interrupted and objected that the prosecutor improperly referred in rebuttal to defense counsel's overruled challenge for cause of the prospective juror Scott during jury empanelment.
The prosecutor replied that defense counsel chose to raise the issue of race in her argument and he should be permitted to rebut. The objection was overruled on that basis, and the prosecutor's rebuttal argument continued without further objection by the defense.
Improper Argument of Prosecutor
The trial court was in error in overruling the objection and in, at the least, failing to admonish the jury to disregard the prosecutor's improper argument.
The prosecutor's argument, referring to an overruled challenge by defense counsel to a sitting juror, was clearly improper. Contrary to the requirements of La.C.Cr.P. art. 774, the argument was not confined to the evidence, and it (probably inadvertently) may have appealed to the prejudice of a juror by reminding him that the defense had challenged him for cause.
(Concededly, the prosecutor's motive was well-intentioned. He was attempting to rebut any inference that the state had any racial bias. Nevertheless, in so doing, the prosecutor improperly commented upon the defense's overruled challenge for cause of a juror.)
This prosecutorial misconduct is sought to be excused as permissible retaliation to a prior defense argument, quoted above, which allegedly itself improperly appealed to the racial prejudices of the two black members on the jury. However, the defense argument, as we apprehend it, was not an appeal to racial prejudice, but rather was relevant to the issue of mistaken identification: The defense counsel was adverting to the common conception or misconception that all whites look alike to many blacks, and that all blacks look alike to many whites, insofar as they share common features—red hair, protruding lips, etc.
The argument thus did not justify the improper prosecutorial response. It did not appeal to racial prejudice, nor was it directed at the two black jurors on the six-person panel any more than to the four white jurors.
The prosecutorial response was thus improper and potentially reversible.
Assignment Reviewablel
The state suggests that we should not review the assignment on the merits. It contends that, in addition to objecting to improper argument, to preserve the issue for review defense counsel must also move either for a mistrial or for an admonition to the jury to disregard the argument.
We find no merit to this suggestion. As we stated in State v. Hamilton, 356 So.2d 1360, 1363 (La.1978): "Once the objection has been made and overruled, clearly the court would additionally refuse any request for admonition or mistrial. . . . [F]ai-lure to so move after the defense objection is overruled [thus] does not preclude review of the trial judge's failure to sustain a properly made objection." (If the objection is sustained, the defense may waive its right to a mistrial by accepting without objection at the time the trial court's admonition to the jury to disregard the improper argument. La.C.Cr.P. arts. 770, 771.)
Reversible Error 1
The prosecutor's argument, referring to an overruled challenge for cause to a sitting juror, was thus improper, as not being confined to the evidence, and as at least potentially appealing to the possible prejudice of that juror against defense counsel who had unsuccessfully challenged him.
A close issue is presented as to whether, in fact, it was in total context so prejudicial as to require reversal. The jurors may well have received the comment in the spirit it was apparently intended—not to appeal to the challenged juror's prejudice, but simply to emphasize the lack of racial bias in the prosecution.
The determination of this issue is to some extent complicated in that the jury split 5-1 in rejecting the alibi evidence and in accepting the positive eyewitness identification of the two store employees that the young couple who casually entered their store wore indeed the same persons who had dramatically stolen the pantsuits and escaped after chase the previous day. Nor are we unaware that the juror Scott, who had been unsuccessfully challenged for cause by the defense, was the foreman of the jury which convicted the accused.
Ultimately, we have determined that it is unlikely that the comment was received by Scott or the other jurors as an appeal to their prejudice or as anything other than a disclaimer of racial bias on the part of the state, stemming from the prosecutor's mistaken conception of the defense argument as an appeal to the racial sympathies of the two black jurors. As we noted in State v. Berain, 360 So.2d 822, 830 (La.1978): "Before a verdict is set aside on the ground of improper argument, we must be convinced that the remarks influenced the jury and contributed to the verdict."
The defense counsel apparently did not feel that the unsuccessful challenge of Scott for cause (because he allegedly dozed during trial court instructions) prejudiced him against the defendants. The defense did not use any of its then unused preenip-tory challenges to excuse Scott after the denial of its challenge of him for. cause. The improper reminder of the earlier challenge is not likely to have prejudiced the juror against the defendant any more than did the challenge itself, especially since in context its apparent motive was only to illustrate the state's lack of racial bias in the prosecution and was not an appeal to racial prejudice and, if an appeal to juror prejudice, was not likely received by the juror as such.
Decree
For the reasons assigned, we find no reversible error, and we affirm the conviction and sentence.
AFFIRMED.
SUMMERS, C. J., concurs for the reasons assigned.
DENNIS, J., dissents and assigns reasons.
Judge Cecil C. Cutrer of the Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit, participated in this decision as an Associate Justice Ad Hoc.