Opinion ID: 178830
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Claims 2 and 13: Prosecutorial Misconduct

Text: Cole contends that statements made by the prosecutor in closing argument, during both the guilt phase (Claim 2) and the penalty phase (Claim 13), were prejudicial to him and made his trial fundamentally unfair. In the guilt phase arguments, Cole objects to the prosecutor: personalizing the evidence by saying, I can't emphasize enough to you the seriousness of this case nor can I emphasize enough to you the strength of the State's case; accusing Cole of sneaking and creeping around at night and terrorizing Terri; eviscerating Cole's presumption of innocence by stating that defendants are usually sitting in that chair ... for a reason; calling Cole a convicted killer; telling the jury that they can send a message to the victims of crime, families in St. Louis County, that you can come to the court house and get justice; and unfairly appealing to the jury's sympathies by reminding them that Terri was a dying woman. [5] Tr. at 1415-21, 1474-80. In the penalty phase, Cole objects to the prosecutor analogizing the jury to patriots who needed to step up to protect society; again reminding jurors that verdicts do send messages; and opining that the death penalty is a weapon we need to have in our arsenal to fight crime. Tr. at 1653-54. None of these statements were objected to by trial counsel. After noting that none of these claims were preserved for direct appeal by a timely objection at trial, the Missouri Supreme Court reviewed for plain error and summarily rejected the majority of Cole's claims. Cole I, 71 S.W.3d at 170. The state court discussed the merits of only one prosecutorial argument (the convicted killer comment), but still found no error of law. In adjudicating the claim, the court found that the prosecutor had repeatedly referred to Cole as a convicted felon during argument, and found the convicted killer remark to be a single inadvertent remark which did not prejudice Cole because the jury had already been presented with the precise nature of his actual prior convictions, none of which involved a homicide. Id. The court also found that [s]tatements made in closing argument will rarely amount to plain error. Id. at 171. Although we agree that the convicted killer comment was clearly improper and several of the other statements were unnecessarily close to the line, the Missouri Supreme Court's adjudication of this claim was not an unreasonable application of, or contrary to, clearly established Supreme Court precedent. The watershed Supreme Court precedent on prosecutorial misconduct is Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986), and under Darden, habeas relief is only appropriate if a prosecutor's improper closing argument so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. Id. at 181, 106 S.Ct. 2464 (quotation omitted). In Darden, the prosecutor insinuated that if not given the death penalty, the defendant might be allowed out on work release to kill again, referred to the defendant as an animal who should be on a leash, and asserted that he wished the defendant's face had been blown off. Id. at 180 n. 9-12, 106 S.Ct. 2464. The Court found that while improper, the comments did not infect the trial with unfairness sufficient to deny petitioner due process. Id. at 181-83, 106 S.Ct. 2464. The Missouri Supreme Court's conclusion that the prosecutor simply misspoke in calling Cole a convicted killer is a factual finding that we presume to be correct. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e). Cole cannot rebut this presumption. We agree that because of the prosecutor's repeated earlier descriptions of Cole as a convicted felon, the record supports the conclusion that the use of the word killer instead of felon in this instance was inadvertent and not unduly prejudicial. Arguments about Cole sneaking around and terrorizing were not improper, unless throwing a tire jack through a glass patio door, conduct admitted by Cole, can somehow not be considered terrorizing. And while we have previously frowned upon send a message, see Sublett v. Dormire, 217 F.3d 598, 601 (8th Cir.2000), and personalizing arguments, see Kellogg v. Skon, 176 F.3d 447, 451-52 (8th Cir.1999), we have also recognized that it will be exceptionally rare that we grant habeas corpus relief on these bases. Sublett, 217 F.3d at 601. The there for a reason comment was also ill-advised. However, shortly thereafter, the prosecutor reminded the jury that Cole was entitled to a presumption of innocence. Furthermore, the prosecutor's comment about Terri being a dying woman was simply an unfortunate fact, and one which defense counsel acknowledged in front of the jury before cross-examining her. Cole argues that the patriot statement compares favorably with prosecutorial argument in Weaver v. Bowersox, 438 F.3d 832, 842 (8th Cir.2006), wherein we affirmed the grant of habeas corpus relief on the basis of improper prosecutorial closing argument. The Weaver prosecutor used a graphic story from a war movie to analogize the jurors to soldiers with a duty to kill, and also implored jurors to kill the defendant as part of the war on drugs. Id. at 836-37. We held that because the prosecutor used an analogy to soldiers, who have no choice but to kill and who follow orders when they kill, the prosecutor improperly eviscerate[d] the concept of discretion afforded to a jury as required by the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 840. We found the prosecutor's statements improper because they diminished the jury's sense of responsibility for imposing the death sentence. Id. The same cannot be said about the statements made by the prosecutor in this case. While the prosecutor did call the jurors patriots, this is not the same as calling them soldiers. Patriot is a rather generic term defined as a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary 1422 (2d ed.1997). It does not commonly include a duty to kill. Nothing in the prosecutor's statements insinuated that the jurors lacked the discretion to decide whether to impose the death penalty. Analogies to war and to soldiers are not comparable to the prosecutor's brief reference to the jurors here as patriots. Accordingly, the challenged statements were either not improper, or even if they were, they were not so inflammatory and prejudicial as to render the trial fundamentally unfair and constitute a denial of Cole's due process. The evidence at trial showed, and Cole admits, that he went to Terri's home with a tire iron and broke a glass patio door to gain entrance to the house. Cole then asked the jury to believe that Terri delivered the fatal blows to Curtis, her guest, in an effort to keep Curtis (who was, admittedly, quite large), from hurting Cole. During his testimony, Cole also insinuated that Curtis administered the knife wounds to Terri. The essence of Cole's guilt phase trial boiled down to whether jurors believed Terri or Cole. At the penalty phase, the prosecution presented three aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed during the attempted homicide of Terri Cole; that it involved depravity of the mind because it was wantonly vile, horrible and inhumane (based upon the excessive number of knife wounds sustained by Curtis); and that it was committed during the perpetration of burglary. The jury found the latter two aggravators beyond a reasonable doubt. When considered in context of the prosecutor's lengthy closing arguments and the evidence presented at both phases of trial, there is no reasonable probability that the prosecutor's statements during closing arguments fatally infected either trial with unfairness or affected the outcome. Accordingly, the Missouri Supreme Court's denial of this claim was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, Supreme Court precedent.