Opinion ID: 1934548
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other alleged improprieties

Text: Appellant claims that several other comments by the prosecutor, to which no objection was made below, were improper. One such claim is that the prosecutor crossed the line in referring to certain concessions and admissions that defense counsel had made in his opening statement. The prosecutor said: Now, in his opening statement, Mr. Koppelman [defense counsel] told you that there were certain things that you would hear from those witnesses that the defense wouldn't argue with, that they wouldn't challenge. They are not going to contest that.... Let's start with what's not disputed. Mr. Koppelman in his opening statement admits that Mr. Bowman went over to Mrs. Bowman's house that night. Not only did he go over to her house, but he went over to her house in direct violation of a civil protection order.... These and similar statements, appellant maintains, were improper because they violated the principle that statements of counsel are not evidence, because they constituted impermissible references to appellant's failure to testify, and because they put words in appellant's mouth. We find no plain error in these remarks. With respect to appellant's assertion that the prosecutor impermissibly commented on his exercise of his right not to testify, reversal is warranted only if the challenged remarks were manifestly intended as comments on his failure to testify, or if they were of such a nature that the jury naturally and necessarily would take them as such. Byrd v. United States, 364 A.2d 1215, 1218 (D.C.1976); accord, e.g., Peoples v. United States, 640 A.2d 1047, 1057 (D.C.1994). The prosecutor's remarks here do not meet this standard. He was not commenting in any way on appellant's decision not to testify, but instead was addressing counsel's announced strategy of defending against the burglary charge by conceding the issue of unlawful entry and arguing that the government could not meet its burden of proving specific intent. See Tillman v. United States, 487 A.2d 1152, 1154 (D.C.1985); Watts v. United States, 449 A.2d 308, 312-313 (D.C.1982). Finally, citing Hawthorne v. United States, 476 A.2d 164 (D.C.1984), appellant argues that the prosecutor's comments improperly put words in his mouth. [16] We cannot agree. The prosecutor's argument here was vastly different from that in Hawthorne, a murder case in which most of the prosecutor's summation was delivered in the first-person voice of the deceased and not only included non-evidence but irrelevancies designed to inflame the emotions of the jury. Id. at 170, 171. In this case, unlike Hawthorne, the prosecutor did not put words in anyone's mouth, nor did he attempt to tell the jury what appellant would have said on the stand if he had testified. Hawthorne is far removed from this case and offers no basis for reversal. See Brewer v. United States, 559 A.2d 317, 323 n. 12 (D.C.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1092, 110 S.Ct. 1163, 107 L.Ed.2d 1066 (1990) ( Hawthorne was an extreme case). Appellant also asserts that the prosecutor's rebuttal argument was intentionally inflammatory, ending in a crescendo which implored [the jury] to pass moral, not legal, judgment upon the defendant.... In particular, he complains about the prosecutor's statement that Mrs. Bowman was in her home in a state of terror when her exhusband broke in, and about suggestions that Mrs. Bowman suffered not only physical damage to her home but emotional injury as well: Can you imagine somebody terrorizing you like that? And there may not be a lot of physical damage, but what about the mental damage? How do you sleep at night? How do you cope with something like that? Defense counsel did not object to the language about mental damage, however, and we find no plain error. The vivid testimony about appellant's violent entry into the house provided sufficient basis for a reasonable inference that Mrs. Bowman was terroriz[ed] and may have suffered at least some transitory mental damage. While there was nothing in the evidence about her ability to sleep at night after appellant's intrusion, we are not persuaded that this language requires reversal when defense counsel saw no reason to complain about it at trial. In any event, these comments can be justified, to some extent, under the invited response doctrine. See United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 11-14, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1044-46, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985). Defense counsel, in his summation, had asked the rhetorical question, What damage did he do to [Mrs. Bowman]?, suggesting that her only actual injury was in being pushed aside as appellant went toward Officer Cosey. We think the prosecutor could permissibly infer, and suggest to the jury, that she suffered a greater injury than merely being pushed aside. For all of these reasons, we find no basis for reversal in the prosecutor's closing argument.