Opinion ID: 2390272
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: failure to object to comments made by the prosecutor

Text: Appellant points to the following two instances where he believes that trial counsel was derelict in his duties: (1) for not objecting when the prosecutor referred to the results of a lie detector test given to Ms. Emmil; and (2) when the prosecutor indicated during his closing argument that an agreement existed between the prosecutor and trial counsel that whoever killed the victim was guilty of murder of the first degree. Concerning the first allegation, the PCRA court indicated that Appellant first brought up the question of Ms. Emmil taking a lie detector test when he testified that Ms. Emmil told him that the police were going to give her such a test and he told her not to worry since lie detector tests were not accurate. N.T., Volume III, p. 80. Under such circumstances, it would not be error to permit cross-examination on this subject since this covered a subject testified to on direct examination. Commonwealth v. Snoke, 525 Pa. 295, 580 A.2d 295 (1990); Commonwealth v. Green, 525 Pa. 424, 581 A.2d 544 (1990). The right of cross-examination has always extended to matters testified to on direct examination and, if Appellant has a complaint that the jury heard that Ms. Emmil took and passed a lie detector test, it cannot be with trial counsel for he has only himself to blame for his revelation of this fact to the jury. As to the other alleged instance of ineffectiveness, Appellant claims that trial counsel should have objected when the prosecutor told the jury that he and trial counsel agreed that whoever killed the victim was guilty of murder of the first degree. The actual statement made by the prosecutor was . . . between Mr. Flinchbaugh and myself, there is not much to debate. Whoever killed Jimmie Lee Taylor is guilty of murder in the first degree. N.T. Volume IV, p. 20. Appellant argues that this statement can be read to indicate that the prosecutor was telling the jury that trial counsel was conceding that the stabbing was a first degree murder. It appears that trial counsel approached the bench at the conclusion of the closing and objected at sidebar to the statement that he had any agreement that the death of the victim was a first degree murder, but trial counsel never made this a formal objection and herein lies Appellant's complaint. It is true that the statement, taken out of context, can be read to mean that neither attorney was questioning that the killing was a murder of the first degree. But the statement can also be read, out of context, to mean that the degree of murder was the only thing left to debate between the parties. This is why remarks made by a prosecutor must be evaluated in the context in which they occur. Commonwealth v. Smith, 490 Pa. 380, 416 A.2d 986 (1980). This statement was made as part of the Commonwealth's closing to the jury and was made in response to trial counsel's argument that Ms. Emmil, rather than Appellant, was the one who stabbed the victim. In fact, in our direct review of this case, we already reviewed this closing statement and commented that the closing was a fair commentary on the evidence. Given the evidence that was presented to the jury which proved that only one of two people could have stabbed the victim (appellant or his girlfriend, Ms. Emmil) the prosecutor's comments were neither unfair nor unduly prejudicial, and merely highlighted what the jury knew already  that one of these two was the murderer and one of these two lied. Commonwealth v. Carpenter, 511 Pa. at 440, 515 A.2d at 536. The comment now complained of is the culmination of the prosecutor's closing and must be read as the prosecutor's summation where he asks the jury to draw a permissible inference from all the evidence, i.e., that one of these two witnesses was the murderer and that the murder is one of first degree. Such an argument simply has nothing to do with any agreements with opposing counsel and it is a misreading of the closing to suggest that one existed or that the purpose of the statement was to put such an idea in the mind of the jury. Accordingly, there was no error in failing to object formally to the prosecutor's statement.