Opinion ID: 2317416
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Vouching for the honesty and credibility of prosecution witnesses

Text: Related to his claim regarding witness Wilson, DeRosa contends that the prosecutor also engaged in misconduct and violated DeRosa's right to a fair trial by vouching for the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses, including investigator Ward, during first-stage closing arguments. The OCCA rejected this claim on the merits (along with some related claims), stating as follows: DeRosa also challenges the following statements by the district attorney, as examples of him asserting his own credibility as a basis for convicting DeRosa: (1) that it offended him that defense counsel was calling Shawn Ward a liar; (2) that I promise you one thing: We've got more than enough to do up here than sit around and trump up cases against people in the community; and (3) that defense counsel's attack on Daniel Wilson's credibility was a common defense tool to put everyone on trial but the defendant. All of these remarks were in response to defense counsel's suggestion that Wilson had a secret deal with the State, which Ward was dishonestly denying, [footnote omitted] and the broader defense theme that the case against DeRosa was based not on actual guilt, but on the State's desire to get him, through the bartered testimony of its witnesses. Defense counsel objected to the remark about Shawn Ward on the ground that he had not actually called the various witnesses liars.FN120 We find that any inappropriate suggestion within the remarksuch as the prosecutor's personal belief in Ward's credibilitywas minimal, and that the remark did not affect the verdicts in DeRosa's case. Objections to the second two statements were sustained, and the jury was admonished to disregard them. DeRosa argues that despite these admonishments, these remarks help establish a pattern of prosecutorial misconduct that infected appellant's trial with unfairness. DeRosa further argues that even if improper witness testimony and prosecutorial remarks did not affect the guilt-stage verdicts in his trial, they could have affected the jury's decision to sentence him to death.FN121 FN120. Not surprisingly, this objection was overruled. FN121. DeRosa's only specific complaints regarding the second stage of his trial are the district attorney's reference to Dr. Wanda Draper's career as a professional witness, and his continuing use of the terms Papa and Mama Glo. The trial court sustained defense counsel's objection to the professional witness comment and admonished the jury to disregard it. This Court has recognized a number of instances of prosecutorial misconduct during DeRosa's trialincluding suggesting that defense counsel was lying and inappropriately attempting to align the State with the victimsand found that a particular statement by witness Janet Tolbert was improper.FN122 This Court notes that even though some of the district attorney's remarks crossed the line of appropriate representation, many of these remarks were in direct response to defense counsel's own overzealous arguments.FN123 Ultimately, DeRosa has failed to show either that his trial was so infected by misconduct and unfair testimony as to violate due process, or that his death sentences were obtained through a violation of the Eighth Amendment. DeRosa was convicted and sentenced to death based upon the facts of his crime and the aggravating circumstances in the case, rather than any improper remarks by the district attorney or State witnesses. Hence the current claim is rejected. FN122. In making its ultimate evaluation of the fundamental fairness of DeRosa's trial, this Court has considered all of these circumstances, including the prosecutorial remarks to which objections were sustained and about which the jury was admonished. FN123. See Darden [ v. Wainwright], 477 U.S. [168,] 182, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 [(1986)] (noting that [m]uch of the objectionable content within the prosecutor's argument was invited by or was responsive to defense counsel's earlier argument). DeRosa I, 89 P.3d at 1148-49 (internal paragraph numbers omitted). DeRosa complains that [t]he OCCA did not employ the Chapman [harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt] standard in assessing the harmlessness of the prosecutor's comments, and thus its determination was unreasonable. Aplt. Br. at 68. But even assuming that the OCCA did err in this regard, we are bound to apply the more forgiving standard of review outlined in Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 113 S.Ct. 1710, 123 L.Ed.2d 353 (1993), under which an error is deemed harmless unless it had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict, Fry v. Pliler, 551 U.S. 112, 116, 127 S.Ct. 2321, 168 L.Ed.2d 16 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). And we conclude, having reviewed the trial transcript, that the prosecutor's statements did not have a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Rather, the jury's first-stage verdict was amply, if not overwhelmingly, supported by the prosecution's evidence. And we conclude the same holds true for the jury's second-stage sentencing verdict.