Opinion ID: 1809585
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Prosecutor's Comment on Defendant's Failure to Testify

Text: Defendant complains of prosecutorial misconduct during the penalty phase argument. Counsel particularly argues that the prosecutor's reference on two occasions that defendant showed no remorse constituted impermissible comments on defendant's failure to testify in violation of La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 770(3). The complaint relates to the following passage from the prosecutor's penalty phase closing argument: We're going to try to give you all the information we can so that you can make a good decision and you can make a just decision. That's all we can ask for. And we brought to you evidence, good and competent and reliable evidence about another murder. Marcus Hamilton has taken another person out of his life, and you heard his own confession.... No remorse shown. It happened in March of 1986. This was before he killed Father McCarthy. He planned the murder. He got a gun, he shot someone while they were lying on the sofashot him in the headtook property from him, and left. After that, he killed Father McCarthy. He has no remorse, no sorrow for that crime. After his first murder, he committed another murder, the murder you sat on as jurors. That's what kind of character; those are his propensities. His propensity is to kill people. That's what that person is there. And that's why I think when I stand here, I said I'm disturbed. We're talking about somebody who kills people and what to do with somebody like that. (emphasis added). A mistrial shall be ordered when the prosecutor refers directly or indirectly to the failure of the defendant to testify in his own defense. La.Code Crim. Proc. art. 770(3). The question in the present case is whether the prosecutor's comment was an indirect reference to the defendant's failure to testify. An indirect reference requires mistrial only if the court determines that the comment was intended to draw the jury's attention to the failure to testify. State v. Johnson, 541 So.2d 818, 822 (La.1989). First, there was no objection to the comment; therefore, defense counsel did not recognize the comment as an attempt to draw the jury's attention to defendant's failure to testify. Moreover, evidence that a capital defendant showed no remorse does not inject arbitrariness into the proceedings, as a lack of remorse is relevant to the character and propensities of the defendant. State v. Wilson, 467 So.2d 503, 523 (La.1985). Finally, defendant was not the only person who could have testified that defendant showed remorse for his crimes, and the prosecutor's comment on the lack of remorse could not reasonably be characterized as an effort to call to the jury's attention the failure of defendant to testify in his own defense.