Opinion ID: 222406
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Propriety of Remarks by Prosecutor During Closing Argument

Text: Gabrion next challenges the propriety of remarks made by the prosecution during the closing argument of the penalty phase. During closing argument, the prosecution argued that Gabrion owe[d] a debt he can never repay to Rachel Timmerman's family, and that the mitigating factors proferred by the defense don't balance the ledger book. The prosecution also pointed out that Gabrion had not expressed remorse for the murder. Gabrion on appeal argues that these remarks were improper and were designed to incite an improperly retaliatory or vengeance-based sentencing decision from the jury. Finding no impropriety in the prosecutor's remarks, we reject this argument. We analyze claims of prosecutorial misconduct based on improper statements under a two-part test: we ask first whether the remarks were improper, and then whether they were flagrant and warrant reversal. United States v. Carroll, 26 F.3d 1380, 1387-88 (6th Cir.1994). This claim can be resolved under the first part of the Carroll test, as the remarks were simply not improper. Despite Gabrion's apparent suggestions to the contrary, the prosecution never argued that the jury had a duty to impose death, or that Gabrion owed the victim's family a debt he could only repay with his life. The ledger book reference was a proper way of articulating the Government's position that, under the weighing of aggravating and mitigating factors set up by the Act, the balance tipped in the Government's favor. The comment about Gabrion's debt did not suggest that Gabrion owed the victim's family his life; indeed, the prosecution was making the very point that the debt could not ever be repaid, no matter the result of their sentencing deliberations. This is fair argumentation from victim impact evidence, allowed by the Supreme Court in Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 827, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991). Similarly, the remark about Defendant's lack of expressed remorse does not fall outside the bounds of acceptable argumentation. In the principal case Gabrion cites for this claim of error, the Third Circuit found that a capital sentencing jury's determination had been impermissibly tainted by the prosecution's stating during closing argument that the defendant didn't even have the common decency to say I'm sorry for what I did. Lesko v. Lehman, 925 F.2d 1527, 1540 (3d Cir. 1991). The court held this remark to be an improper comment on the defendant's assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Id. at 1544-45. But here, the Fifth Amendment privilege is not in issue; Gabrion waived it, by both testifying at trial and delivering an allocution. The Government's factually accurate reference to Gabrion's lack of expressed remorse during these two appearances was not an improper attempt to penalize him for exercising his constitutional right, but rather an appropriate argument concerning Gabrion's character.