Opinion ID: 360504
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Prosecutor's Comment.

Text: 44 Appellant Claude Wayne Cole objected at trial to certain statements made by the Assistant United States Attorney during his closing argument, and on appeal he argues that those remarks and the trial court's failure to adequately correct their influence constitute reversible error as a comment on his failure to testify. 45 The prosecutor made the following statement toward the end of his closing argument: 46 There is just too much, ladies and gentlemen, I don't have the time to cover it all. Some of the physical evidence that we have, Wayne Cole, I asked him to explain where his fingerprints were on the white truck that were (sic) found at his house. The fingerprints at the Villa Rica tap site. 47 The appellant's counsel immediately objected, the jury was sent out of the courtroom, and appellant's counsel moved for a mistrial. The following colloquy then took place: 48 MR. FROELICH (Assistant United States Attorney): I didn't say Mr. Cole, I said I meant to say his attorney or Mr. Kirwan. 49 I apologize and I will correct the remand (sic) to the jury. I said him. I didn't say Mr. Cole. I meant Mr. Kirwan. 50 THE COURT: You said Mr. Cole. 51 MR. FROELICH: No, I did not say Mr. Cole, Your Honor. 52 After this exchange, the court had the record read back, denied the motion for mistrial, admonished the prosecutor, and then called the jury back into the courtroom, giving the following instruction: 53 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I instruct you that you should disregard the last statement made by the District Attorney with respect to the defendant, Claude Wayne Cole. 54 The law does not require that a defendant prove anything but the burden is always on the prosecution as I will instruct you in my final charge to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every essential element of the crime charged. 55 And the law never imposes upon a defendant in a criminal case the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence. 56 Finally, in his general charge at the close of the trial, the judge stated: 57 The law does not compel a defendant in a criminal case to take the witness stand and testify, and no presumption of guilt may be raised, and no inference of any kind may be drawn, from the failure of a defendant to testify. 58 It is well settled that under both the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and 18 U.S.C. § 3481, it is not permissible for the prosecution to comment on a defendant's failure to testify. Stewart v. United States, 366 U.S. 1, 81 S.Ct. 941, 6 L.Ed.2d 84 (1961); Wilson v. United States, 149 U.S. 60, 13 S.Ct. 765, 37 L.Ed. 650 (1893); Samuels v. United States, 398 F.2d 964, 968 (5th Cir. 1968), Cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1021, 89 S.Ct. 630, 21 L.Ed.2d 566 (1969). Such a comment is equally forbidden even though it is indirect. Benham v. United States, 215 F.2d 472 (5th Cir. 1954). In United States v. Rochan, 563 F.2d 1246 (5th Cir. 1977), this court recently restated the test for reversing a conviction on the grounds of improper comment by the prosecutor. The court stated: 59 To reverse for improper comment by the prosecutor, we must find one of two things: that 'the prosecutor's manifest intention was to comment upon the accused's failure to testify' or that the remark was 'of such a character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify.' 60 Id. at 1249 (citations omitted). 61
62 In Rochan, the court stated our policy not to find that the prosecutor manifestly intended to comment on the defendant's failure to testify if some other explanation is equally plausible. Faced with a remark quite similar to the one here, the court in Samuels v. United States, 398 F.2d 964, 968 (5th Cir. 1968), declined to reverse because it was found to be very possible that the prosecutor's statement was merely inadvertent and that his intent was to use the defense counsel's name rather than that of the defendant. See also United States v. Wilson, 500 F.2d 715, 721 (5th Cir. 1974). In United States v. Ward, 552 F.2d 1080, 1083 (5th Cir. 1977), the court concluded that the prosecutor's remarks did not require reversal when they were more likely intended for a proper purpose to refer to the defendants' failure to produce evidence of any kind . . . to rebut the inference of knowledge that naturally follows from the possession of recently stolen property than to comment on the defendant's failure to take the stand. 63 In the instant case, the prosecutor's statement does not make logical sense as transcribed. The prosecutor could not have Asked  Wayne Cole anything because Cole did not take the stand. Further, if we assume that the court reporter quite reasonably transcribed ask as asked, the statement still lacks meaning since it was made during the prosecutor's closing argument, when the government could no longer ask questions to any witnesses. Thus, the only reasonable interpretation of the remark is to find that the prosecutor inadvertently used the defendant's name when he intended to call on the defendant's counsel to explain in his closing argument this uncontradicted evidence. This was, in fact, the explanation given by the prosecutor immediately after the remark was made. This appropriate motivation seems at least as likely as a manifest intention to comment. 64
65 We further find that the appellant has not shown that the jury necessarily construed the remark as a comment on his failure to testify. A review of this court's cases involving this issue reveals our reluctance to find the necessary improper understanding on the part of the jury. In United States v. Toler, 440 F.2d 1242 (5th Cir. 1971), we considered a government attorney's statement in a prosecution for filing a false medical claim for Social Security benefits. The prosecutor said at no time has he (the defendant) denied filing it, and we found it not a comment on the defendant's failure to take the stand, but rather on the uncontradicted state of the evidence. Again in Samuels v. United States, 398 F.2d 964 (5th Cir. 1968), we found that the jury did not necessarily construe improperly the remark G.L. Samuels does not want to talk about the facts, stating that it was very possible that the prosecutor's inadvertent use of the defendant's name instead of the defense counsel's name could have been interpreted by the jury as directed to the argument of counsel and not to the defendant's failure to testify. In United States v. Rochan, 563 F.2d 1246 (5th Cir. 1977), we found that the prosecutor's rhetorical question posed midway through his closing argument what did we hear from the defense in this case? was not necessarily interpreted by the jury as a comment on the defendant's failure to testify, but could have been understood as a transitional device. 8 66 In this case, we feel that the jury could have quite reasonably construed the prosecutor's remark as we have that is, as an inadvertent reference to the defendant when he intended to call on the defense counsel to explain in his closing argument the uncontradicted evidence concerning the presence of defendant Cole's fingerprints on objects seized by the FBI in connection with the arrests in this case. At the very least, it can be said that this contested statement, when read in context, represents a borderline case as to whether there was a comment on the defendant's failure to testify. As such, we feel that any potential impropriety of the prosecutorial comment was cured by the court's instructions both immediately after the remark was made and at the close of the trial. Although it is clear that in extreme cases it would be unrealistic to assume that instructions can remove the prejudicial effects of a constitutional error, we do not feel the mistake here was impossible of correction. The comment under attack was unexceptional, lacking in aggravation and emphasis. Further, we find that the evidence of appellant Cole's involvement in the conspiracy as an active participant was great. We thus hold that the prosecutor's comments were not of such a nature as to constitute reversible error. 67