Opinion ID: 2454804
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Personalization

Text: Deck also claims that the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutor to personalize his penalty phase closing argument. The prosecutor told the jury that while they were deliberating, they should count out ten minutes and you think about how long that is and then think about somebody pointing a gun at your head at the same time. No objection was made to the prosecutor's argument; therefore, Deck requests plain error review. Relief should rarely be granted on an assertion of plain error in closing argument. State v. Silvey, 894 S.W.2d 662, 670 (Mo. banc 1995). The reason, as this Court has explained, is that in the absence of objection and request for relief the trial court's options are narrowed to uninvited interference with [the closing argument] and a corresponding increase of error by such intervention. Id. In order to be entitled to relief, appellant must make a substantial showing that manifest injustice will result if relief is not granted. State v. Wood, 719 S.W.2d 756, 759 (Mo. banc 1986). Deck argues that the prosecutor's comment urging the jurors to put themselves in the place of the victim was the same kind of improper personalization this Court condemned in State v. Storey, 901 S.W.2d 886, 901 (Mo. banc 1995). In Storey , the prosecutor told the jurors to put themselves in the victim's place and then graphically described the crime to the jurors as if they were the victims. This Court concluded that the prosecutor's argument was improper because it could only arouse fear in the jury, id., and moreover, arguments that inflame and arouse fear in the jury are especially prejudicial when the death penalty is at issue. Id. (citing State v. Tiedt, 357 Mo. 115, 206 S.W.2d 524, 529 (Mo. banc 1947)). The prosecutor's argument in this case is distinguishable from the prosecutor's argument in Storey . Here, the prosecutor's comments were brief and isolated and did not involve graphic detail, and as such, they did not result in manifest injustice. The point is denied.