Opinion ID: 1249738
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Prosecutor's Testimony and Reference Thereto in Closing Argument.

Text: (17) Defendant contends the prosecutor engaged in prejudicial misconduct during closing argument. This contention is not persuasive. Defendant sought to prove that he could not have stabbed Gardner because he was on the third floor immediately after the alarm sounded. Defendant argued that to reach the third floor he would have had to run up the stairs from the first floor and thence through a locked gate. The prosecution called Officer Robert Rudolph, Jr., to describe the whereabouts and activities of defendant and Menefield on the morning of the killings. He testified he was guarding the third floor between H Wing and a grille gate, and that he did not recall whether the gate was open or closed. When Rudolph heard the alarm following the attack on Gardner, he ran to the second floor; he did not recall whether he locked the gate behind him. On cross-examination, Rudolph testified he did not recall that defendant came through the gate within five minutes of the alarm's sounding. The defense had been given a copy of the prosecutor's notes of a prior interview with Rudolph. The notes contained an apparent statement by Rudolph that he had locked the gate before going downstairs. But on the stand Rudolph denied having told the prosecutor that he had locked the gate, and also denied having told a defense investigator that he was in the main corridor before the alarm sounded. Defendant called the prosecutor as a witness to authenticate his notes for use in impeaching Rudolph's memory. The prosecutor testified that the statement was an editorial comment of his own that had not come from Rudolph, who in fact had told him he could not remember whether he had locked the gate. Defendant now asserts that the prosecutor's closing argument implied he was privy to evidence not given the jury when he advanced a theory that Rudolph had indeed left the gate unlocked long enough for defendant to slip through unobserved. Defendant did not assign misconduct to and request an admonition regarding the asserted comment. His claim therefore is procedurally barred. ( People v. Green, supra, 27 Cal.3d 1, 27.) In any event, the record is insufficient to make out a claim of prosecutorial misconduct. Of course counsel may not testify during closing argument, but may only emphasize evidence properly adduced earlier. While in his closing argument the prosecutor occasionally used such phrases as I know, the record belies the claim that he held himself out as an unsworn witness (see People v. Bolton (1979) 23 Cal.3d 208, 213 [152 Cal. Rptr. 141, 589 P.2d 396]). Rather, the record reveals that every fact to which the prosecutor alluded was supported by some evidence introduced at trial. The prosecutor thus did not, in our view, hint that he had access to facts damaging to defendant that were not before the jury. On other occasions when the prosecutor spoke in the first person in his closing argument to reinforce his own previous testimony, he was entitled to do so, because defendant had called him to the stand and thereby made the prosecutor's recollections part of the evidence. Defendant also contends the prosecutor violated his Sixth Amendment confrontation rights by holding himself out as an unsworn witness. Defendant also claims the alleged misconduct violated his right to due process because he was not afforded a fair trial. For the reasons stated above, we disagree with both contentions: the prosecutor did not commit misconduct or hold himself out as an unsworn witness.