Opinion ID: 172342
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Erroneous Statements in the Prosecutor's Closing Argument

Text: There were also several instances during closing argument where the prosecutor misrepresented the evidence and Kurth made no objection. However, the court did instruct the jury prior to counsels' closing arguments that an attorney's statements are not evidence and should be disregarded if the statements are not supported by the evidence. Mem. and Order at 35. The Kansas Supreme Court found Kurth's failure to object deficient: [The prosecutor's] statements were outside the wide latitude given a prosecutor in discussing the evidence and thus could have been subject to a sustainable objection.... Lacking any strategic explanation in the record for Kurth's failure to object, and given the repeated nature of the prosecutor's behavior, we agree that Kurth was ineffective by failing to object to these statements. 283 Kan. at 101-02, 150 P.3d 868 (internal citations omitted). The Kansas Supreme Court found that the prosecutor's misstatements were not prejudicial because the misstatements were not enough to take the jury's eyes off the ball. Id. at 106, 150 P.3d 868. The district court again disagreed, finding that the failures to object, combined with the other deficiencies in Kurth's performance at trial, were prejudicial, and noting that each misstatement of fact related directly to the `Tom versus [Floyd]' issue. Mem. and Order at 34. The Kansas Supreme Court found three of the prosecutor's statements during closing argument to be troubling. 283 Kan. at 101, 150 P.3d 868. First, the prosecutor erroneously said that [t]he physical evidence shows that Tom didn't do it. ROA, Vol. IV, at 986. There was no physical evidence that excluded Tom as the killer. Further, there was physical evidence linking Tom to the crime. The gun was Tom's; the bullets were purchased by Tom. Second, the prosecutor misquoted Cody's hearsay testimony in closing argument. The prosecutor stated: [Floyd] wasn't alone. We know there w[ere] at least three people there, him and [C.A.], and he brought his son. His son sat in the vehicle and he watched Floyd Scott Bledsoe put the gun to the back of his aunt's head and pulled the trigger. Floyd takes care of the body, gets back in the car, Cody says, You killed [C.A.]. Imagine what went through that boy's mind. When Floyd Scott Bledsoe convinced his two-year-old son to say Tom did it, as soon as that powerful influence of his father was out of his presence he was comfortable with telling the truth, spontaneous comments by two-year-old children, going to the grave site, a spontaneoustwo-year-old children don't use a lot of reasoning or deduction, but when he goes to [C.A's] grave he explains to her, because he was there, that he didn't do it. [C.A.], I didn't kill you, my dad did. Id. at 986. However, according to Heidi's testimony, Cody did not say, [C.A.], I didn't kill you, my dad did, as reported by the prosecutor in his closing argument. Instead, Heidi testified that Cody said, [C.A.], I didn't shoot you, it wasn't me. Id., Vol. II, at 434. While it is true that at some point after Floyd's arrest, according to Heidi, Cody began to implicate Floyd in the murder, there was no evidence that Cody implicated Floyd when he was taken to the grave site. The prosecutor misrepresented the evidence by misquoting Heidi's testimony. Finally, the prosecutor erroneously said that a psychologist testified that Cody was present during the murder. Near the end of his initial closing, the prosecutor said: Ladies and gentlemen, Mom, Floyd, and Cody explained to you it was Floyd. Tom couldn't have done it. [Floyd's] wife, his wife explains to you, and she, her testimony clearly wasn't skewed. It didn't present all kinds of bolstering testimony for the State to show that her husband had killed her sister. What it did do was it reinforced the fact that Cody was there. Her perception, she'd raised him since he was young, Cody was there. A psychologist, based on the information she said, Cody was there. There's only one way Cody would have been there, ladies and gentlemen. He didn't walk, he didn't crawl, he didn't ride a horse; he was with his father when [C.A.] was killed. He was never with Tom that whole evening. He was with Floyd. Id., Vol. IV, at 989. No psychologist testified that Cody was there. The only psychologist to testify at the trial (Claudine Boldridge) said that some students had come in complaining that Tom had messed with other kids on a fishing trip, and one had heard Cody talking at church about C.A.'s murder. Id., Vol. II, at 416, 418. However, Boldridge did not testify as an expert and did not give her opinion about whether Cody actually witnessed the murder. Kurth's failure to object during closing argument does not establish prejudice. A jury instruction may minimize the impact of any error made by misstating the evidence in closing arguments. See, e.g., Thornburg v. Mullin, 422 F.3d 1113, 1134 (10th Cir.2005) (explaining that a judge's instructions that the jury should consider only the evidence introduced at trial, that the attorneys' statements and arguments are not evidence, and that the jury bore the responsibility of determining the credibility of each witness may minimize the impact of a prosecutor's misstatements). We agree with the Kansas Supreme Court that the prosecutor's misstatements, particularly in light of the court's instruction that attorneys' statements are not evidence, were not enough to take the jury's eyes off the ball. 283 Kan. at 106, 150 P.3d 868. The Kansas Supreme Court's determination that this deficiency was not prejudicial is not objectively unreasonable under AEDPA standards.