Opinion ID: 3062180
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Other Alleged Misconduct

Text: Because Defendant’s remaining claims of prosecutorial misconduct do not allege the invasion of a specific constitutional right, he must show that the alleged misconduct “sufficiently infected the trial . . . to make it fundamentally unfair, and, therefore, a denial of due process.” Duckett, 306 F.3d at 988. “[T]his is a high hurdle.” Banks v. Workman, 692 F.3d 1133, 1148 (10th Cir. 2012). And it is even higher here because Defendant must show that the OCCA’s rejection of his claim was unreasonable under § 2254(d). See id. He has failed to do so. Defendant complains that during the guilt phase the prosecutor improperly introduced, and commented on, what he characterizes as “victim impact testimony” from the victims’ family members. Aplt. Br. at 42, 44. He cites 5 In this court Defendant also argues that the prosecutor’s closing argument in the trial’s guilt phase lowered the burden of proof. The OCCA did not address this claim. That is probably because the claim was not raised in Defendant’s brief to the OCCA. In any event, the claim is wholly without merit. -30- statements by Shane McInturff’s parents and Keri Sloniker’s mother alluding to their close relationships with the victims; and he cites the following statement by the prosecutor about Keri Sloniker in his guilt-phase closing argument: “On her left-hand was a small little diamond that Shane McInturff had given her that expressed his commitment of his intention to marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. He did, it was just a lot shorter life than any of us thought.” Tr., Vol. 16 at 61. We see no prosecutorial misconduct in the questioning of the witnesses; the questions inquired about matters relevant to establish the witnesses’ familiarity with the victims’ activities, and the questioning was relatively brief. The prosecutor’s comment in closing, however, cannot be defended. He made no effort to tie it to a material fact in the case. Nevertheless, it was brief and isolated, and Defendant did not object. See Trice v. Ward, 196 F.3d 1151, 1167 (10th Cir. 1999) (failure to object, although “not dispositive, is relevant to our assessment of fundamental unfairness”). The OCCA was not unreasonable in refusing to say that the statement rendered the trial fundamentally unfair. Defendant further complains that while cross-examining him, the prosecutor mentioned that he had been a death-row inmate. But, as the OCCA observed, Defendant himself had already volunteered, while being cross-examined on whether he endorsed statements made on a website supporting him, that a second website was not just for him but “for all the prisoners on death row.” Tr., -31- Vol. 14 at 160; see Dodd, 100 P.3d at 1040. The prosecutor’s statement did not tell jurors anything they did not already know. As for the prosecution’s comments that Al Ames’s knife perfectly matched a swipe of blood found on Keri Sloniker’s foot, the OCCA recognized that such comments “were at times overstated,” Dodd, 100 P.3d at 1038, but it noted that the jury had been “instructed that these comments were not evidence,” id., that the defense had highlighted the limitations of the evidence on cross-examination, see id., and that the strength of the evidence had been “clarified by considerable forensic expert testimony on the subject,” id. at 1040–41. The OCCA reasonably determined that the jury was not misled. Next, Defendant claims that the prosecution improperly vouched for witnesses by (1) eliciting testimony from investigator Rockie Yardley describing previous cases on which he had worked; (2) eliciting testimony from crime-scene reconstructionist Tom Bevel that one of the prosecutors had met him at the crime scene; and (3) using the phrase “we know” when summarizing the evidence during guilt-phase closing arguments. “It is clearly impermissible to bolster a State witness by suggesting that information available to the prosecution but not presented to the jury supports the witness’s testimony.” Cargle v. Mullin, 317 F.3d 1196, 1219 (10th Cir. 2003) (citing United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 18 (1985)). Additionally, prosecutors have a “duty to refrain from overzealous conduct by commenting on the defendant’s guilt and offering unsolicited personal -32- views on the evidence.” Young, 470 U.S. at 7. Any failure to observe these principles here, however, did not result in a fundamentally unfair trial. Yardley’s testimony about past cases was relevant to establish his expertise. As for Bevel’s mention of meeting the prosecutor at the crime scene, even if it could be characterized as improper, it occupied a mere snippet of otherwise appropriate testimony, and defense counsel never objected. Moreover, Defendant has not suggested that the expertise or integrity of Yardley or Bevel was at issue in the case. And as for the prosecutor’s use of “we know” in closing, “[s]uch arguments, like all closing arguments of counsel, are seldom carefully constructed in toto before the event; improvisation frequently results in syntax left imperfect and meaning less than crystal clear.” Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 646–47 (1974). “[A] court should not lightly infer that a prosecutor intends an ambiguous remark to have its most damaging meaning or that a jury, sitting through lengthy exhortation, will draw that meaning from the plethora of less damaging interpretations.” Id. at 647. Defendant also complains of assorted instances of what he describes as “melodramatic, badgering[] conduct” by the prosecutor. Aplt. Br. at 57. Some of this conduct, such as the closing-argument statement that Defendant was a “‘brutal amateur’” at killing, the OCCA held to be proper commentary on the evidence presented. Dodd, 100 P.3d at 1041. Defendant has offered no Supreme Court authority to the contrary. As for the rest, the OCCA ruled: -33- The prosecutor’s conduct was at times melodramatic, and his sidebar comments about the defendant’s demeanor would have been better reserved for closing argument. The trial in this case was long and sometimes emotional. Counsel for both parties were experienced, prepared, and zealous advocates. That zeal may have overtaken them briefly at times. [Defendant] concedes in his brief that neither side was beyond reproach. We have considered the instances [Defendant] complains of carefully, in light of the entire record, and cannot say that this conduct, alone or in accumulation, affected the outcome of the trial. Id. Our review of the record assures us that this determination was reasonable. Finally, Defendant claims that during closing argument the prosecutor attempted to mislead jurors regarding a window in the victims’ apartment. The apartment’s living room had two adjacent windows on the south side of the front door; we will refer to the window closer to the door as the north window and the other as the south window. The victims would sometimes leave one of these windows (presumably, the north window) unlocked so that a person who did not have a door key could open the window, reach in, and unlock the front door. Robert McInturff testified that before entering the apartment with Defendant and discovering the victims, he tried to open the window but found it locked. When police arrived on the scene a short time later, they discovered that the south window was unlocked and ajar by about a millimeter. Defendant claims that the prosecutor improperly argued that while Mr. McInturff was examining the bodies, Defendant unlocked and opened the window that Mr. McInturff had just tried to open. -34- There are two problems with Defendant’s argument. First, the prosecutor did not misstate the evidence. He indeed referred to a window in his closing argument, saying: “There’s only one person on the planet who had access and a reason to monkey with that window. It’s that guy right there, the killer.” Tr., Vol. 16 at 46. But he did not say that “that window” was the one that Mr. McInturff had tried. Although Defendant contends that the prosecutor was deliberately vague, allowing jurors to think that the “access window” had gone from locked to unlocked when, in fact, it had remained locked, Aplt. Br. at 49, we cannot tell from the record whether he indicated nonverbally what window he was referring to or whether any ambiguity in his statement was motivated by a desire to deceive the jury. We think it significant that the argument made by Defendant on direct appeal about the prosecutor’s reference to the open window was not that the prosecutor misidentified which window was open but that there was insufficient evidence to support the inference that Defendant unlocked and opened a window. 6 The alleged misdirection by the prosecutor was apparently too subtle to be picked up on by appellate counsel. 6 All that Defendant’s direct-appeal brief said on the matter was: “[The prosecutor’s] argument that [Defendant] unlocked the window and pulled it ajar was not a reasonable inference from the evidence . . . .” Original Br. at 92, Dodd v. State, No. CF-94-7724 (Okla. Crim. App. Oct. 6, 2003) (Direct-Appeal Br.). The issue was developed further in Defendant’s second state postconviction proceeding. -35- Second, even if the prosecutor misidentified which window was ajar, Defendant cannot explain why the issue mattered very much. As the State pointed out in federal district court, the distance from the south side of the south window to the north side of the north window was less than four feet, so if the south window was unlocked, a person could easily reach in and unlock the north window. Nor is it clear what Defendant would think he had to gain by unlocking a window when McInturff knew, and so testified, that it had been locked. The incriminating accusation is simply that Defendant tried to make it seem that someone could have entered the apartment when the door was locked, suggesting that the culprit may not have been let in by the victims. Moreover, defense counsel called this point into doubt in cross-examining investigator Rockie Yardley and during closing argument. She clarified which windows were involved, elicited that no fingerprints were found on the open window, and pointed out that the heavy draperies on the opened window would have made it hard for Defendant to open the window without being noticed by Robert McInturff. Viewing Defendant’s allegations of prosecutorial misconduct as a whole, we cannot say that the OCCA was unreasonable in refusing to hold that the -36- challenged conduct deprived Defendant of a fundamentally fair trial. Relief on this claim is denied. 7