Opinion ID: 867478
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Refusal to Permit Surrebuttal Argument

Text: ¶ 202 Moody contends that because he bore the burden of proof on the insanity defense, the trial court should have allowed him to make a surrebuttal argument and its refusal to do so constituted constitutional and prejudicial error. Preliminarily, we note that the record is not clear whether defense counsel ever requested surrebuttal argument: The record is devoid of any evidence that Moody requested surrebuttal argument either during discussions about closing argument and jury instructions or after the prosecution's rebuttal argument. [16] Consequently, the argument appears to have been waived. ¶ 203 Even had Moody preserved this issue for appeal, however, whether to permit surrebuttal argument is a decision committed to the discretion of the trial court. See State v. Jensen, 153 Ariz. 171, 180, 735 P.2d 781, 790 (1987) (upholding the trial court's denial of surrebuttal testimony). On appeal, we will not disturb the court's rulings absent an abuse of that discretion. Id. The only authority Moody cites suggesting that the court abused its discretion is the dissenting opinion in State v. Zimmerman, 166 Ariz. 325, 331, 802 P.2d 1024, 1030 (App.1990) (Kleinschmidt, J., dissenting), which suggests that because the defendant bears the burden of proving an insanity defense, it should be an abuse of discretion to not allow surrebuttal. ¶ 204 We decline to hold that the failure to permit surrebuttal when there has been no request for it constitutes an abuse of discretion. We opt not to create a per se rule requiring surrebuttal argument in all cases in which insanity is raised as a defense, and reaffirm our previous holdings granting discretion to the trial judge to determine whether to permit surrebuttal in a given case. See, e.g., State v. Steelman, 120 Ariz. 301, 319, 585 P.2d 1213, 1231 (1978).