Opinion ID: 2320585
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Were the prosecutor's actions improper?

Text: In making its case to the jury, the government is not required to deliver a dispassionate presentation of sterile facts. The gritty reality of the crime, including its human toll, is relevant to the jury's consideration. See Dixon v. United States, 565 A.2d 72, 76 (D.C.1989). As with all matters presented to the jury, however, undue prejudice must be taken into account to ensure that the jury's verdict is based on the evidence and law, and not the emotional response of inflamed passions. See id. at 77-78. The trial judge, observing what transpired, thought that the prosecutor's actions crossed that line, said so on the record, and decided that the transgression was serious enough to require a cautionary instruction, which he gave without objection from the prosecutor. [8] While the government argues that defense counsel failed to object and there-by by acquiesced in the trial court's action which we discuss belowwe also think that the government, having not objected, for its part acquiesced in the trial court's response and the characterization of the prosecutor's conduct during rebuttal as completely inappropriate. We cannot replicate the trial judge's vantage point as an observer of the impact in the courtroom of the prosecutor's argument. Based on the record before us, and our deference to the trial court's judgment, see Davis v. United States, 564 A.2d 31, 35 (D.C.1989) (en banc), we conclude that the prosecutor's remarks coupled with the use of unnecessarily graphic photos of the corpse were improper. Although the court had admitted the photographs into evidence, and they had been used in the trial, during rebuttal the prosecutor on more than one occasion thrust into the face of each of the jurors, a one and a half foot high photograph, described by the trial court as gory, of the decedent lying in a huge pool of blood on the floor. In response, as defense counsel noted, at least two jurors were compelled to divert their eyes. The impact of the prosecutor's use of the photographs was heightened by the prosecutor's accompanying comment that the jury should return a verdict it could live with. The message the prosecutor was sending to the jurors was clear. As the court interpreted, the jurors were being asked how could you live with anything other than voting guilty? We agree with the trial court that the photographs were displayed during rebuttal for no apparent reason other than to inflame the passion of the jury, further evidenced by the prosecutor's use of the photographs during trial. The court also observed that during rebuttal, the prosecutor was not making any point about ballistics or distances, or anything else, but presumably asking them [the jury] to render a verdict that they could live with. The prosecutor confirmed the trial court's assessment of his motivation when he responded, I was showing the photograph because that's what this crime is about. Mr. Aun [sic] was killed brutally and that's the point. It is well settled that remarks directed to the emotions and prejudices of the jury, or calculated to arouse passion or inflame the jury, are improper and impermissible. See, e.g., Diaz v. United States, 716 A.2d 173, 180 (D.C.1998) (citing Powell v. United States, 455 A.2d 405, 410 (D.C. 1982)). In Ford v. United States, 487 A.2d 580 (D.C.1984), the court held that remarks of the prosecutor in conjunction with holding up a picture of the decedent before the jury were improper, but excused the conduct because it was in response to remarks made by the defense. See id. at 590-91. Here, although the prosecutor purported to be responding to the defense's closing that the jury should render a verdict it could live with, defense counsel's remarks in closing emphasized the seriousness of the jury's responsibility [9] and the photographs were not used to counter any specific argument by the defense. We underscore that the prosecutor's comment and his confronting each juror with the graphic enlarged photographs of the shooting victim occurred during the government's rebuttal. Inappropriate comments by the government are looked upon with special disfavor when they appear in the rebuttal because at that point defense counsel has no opportunity to contest or clarify what the prosecutor has said. Coreas v. United States, 565 A.2d 594, 605 (D.C.1989) (quoting Hall v. United States, 540 A.2d 442, 448 (D.C. 1988)). The government's rebuttal in this case was designed to appeal to the emotions of the jury and improperly sought to influence the jury's assessment of appellant's guilt by suggesting that someone should be held responsible for what was done to the murder victim. The only person available to the jury was the appellant. We have no hesitation in concluding that the prosecutor's rebuttal argument was improper. Given the lack of a timely objection by defense counsel, the court's curative instruction was not as effective as it would have been if counsel had timely alerted the judge and proposed a more specific instruction. By the time the trial court raised the matter sua sponte, the jury had heard the complete government rebuttal and seventeen transcript pages of instructions. The curative instruction was thus removed in time from the incident which had provoked it. See Baldi v. Nimzak, 158 A.2d 915, 917-18 (D.C.1960). Furthermore, the instruction was phrased in general terms, and gave a gentle caution to the jury that the nature of the charges should not affect the verdict, without specifically mentioning the prosecutor's objectionable use of the photographs and comments. Although the cautionary instruction given appears relatively mild when compared to the aggressiveness of the prosecutor's improper rebuttal, and there is a question whether it was sufficient to counter the prejudice from the prosecutor's improper argument, we need not arrive at a conclusive evaluation of its impact on the jury's verdict for we decide that counsel's ineffectiveness in questioning a witness requires reversal.