Opinion ID: 495040
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Potential Harm to Trial Witnesses

Text: 29 In rebuttal argument, the prosecutor asked the jury [w]hich of these witnesses that testified, if they thought that members ... of this jury would not protect them, would have ever taken this stand and testified? Campbell's attorney immediately objected on the ground that it was not proper rebuttal. The trial judge sustained the objection, and the prosecuting attorney moved on to another line of argument. Campbell asserts that the prosecutor's statement improperly suggested to the jury the possibility of Campbell's escape from prison if he were not executed. 30 We agree that the prosecutor's statement did at least suggest the possibility of escape. Because the likelihood of Campbell's future contact with trial witnesses, if he were to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, is remote compared to the contact he inevitably would have with fellow prisoners and prison employees, the link between this argument and Campbell's future dangerousness is far more attenuated than that of the previous argument. Moreover, the comment violated at least the spirit of the trial judge's preargument order not to discuss the possibility of escape in argument. 31 We do not find, however, that the argument was constitutionally improper, particularly in light of Campbell's conduct in the past--that is, the killing of two of the victims because of their prior testimony against him. This argument is analogous to the instruction given in Ramos, but is even more individualized. In Ramos the Supreme Court approved the use of an instruction to inform the jury of the governor's power to commute a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole to a lesser sentence under which parole was a possibility. Ramos, 463 U.S. at 1005, 103 S.Ct. at 3456. In upholding the instruction, the Court stated: 32 [A]s a functional matter the [i]nstruction focuses the jury's attention on whether this particular defendant is one whose possible return to society is desirable. In this sense, then, the jury's deliberation is individualized. The instruction invites the jury to predict not so much what some future Governor might do, but more what the defendant himself might do if released into society. 33 Id.; see also Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 1383, 1411-12 (11th Cir.1985) (en banc) (holding arguments regarding possibility of escape proper because they were arguments about Brooks' future dangerousness [which] were appropriate inferences from the record before the jury), vacated and remanded on other grounds, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3325, 92 L.Ed.2d 732 (1986).