Opinion ID: 1862290
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Whether the trial court erred by allowing the prosecutor to comment in closing argument on the appellant's failure to call other witnesses whom either side could have called.

Text: Appellant Ross contends that the prosecutor prejudicially referred to Ross's failure to call corroborating alibi witnesses and that the trial court erred in not admonishing the jury to disregard the remarks. Defendant Ross testified that, on May 26, 1987, Robertson, an employee of his, met him at his home at about 5:00 a.m. They left together to meet the rest of Ross's brick-masonry crew at a restaurant. When the full crew did not arrive, Ross went fishing with his brother, Ricky, and employee Robertson for several hours. They stopped at a grocery store. The grocery store owner, with some inconsistencies between his testimony and Ross's, testified that the three stopped at 3:00 p.m. and stayed for about a half-hour. Somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m., Ross and Robertson returned to Ross's home. Ross's wife testified that Ross and Robertson brought home a bucket of fish. During closing arguments, the prosecutor stated to the jury: All we heard from [defendant Ross] on the alibi besides the defendant himself was people either saw him once or twice that day. [His wife] saw him maybe at five [a.m.], or whenever he left, realized that he left, and saw him back at four [p.m.]... . We didn't hear anything about that, he was fishing all day, from any other witness except him. We didn't hear about the fishing from the brother, or the Johnson [sic]. The defense objected, [H]e has subpoena right, he could have called him. The trial court responded, This is argument. Any statement, argument, or remark that's not in evidence can be disregarded. On this issue, Brown v. State, 200 Miss. 881, 27 So.2d 838, 840 (1946) (en banc) carried forward in Mississippi law the rule that the failure of either party to examine a witness equally accessible to both parties is not a proper subject for comment before a jury. Madlock added the corollary that, when the record provides no proof of the absent witness's accessibility or inaccessibility, this Court nonetheless presumes that both parties had equal access to the witness. Madlock v. State, 440 So.2d 315, 318 (Miss. 1983). See also Holmes v. State, 537 So.2d 882 (Miss. 1988). The concept of equal accessibility constitutes a crucial concept in applying this rule. In the 1946 Brown case, this Court held that the rule barring comment did not apply where a witness, while technically accessible to both parties, stood more available to the complaining party. Brown, 200 Miss. at 888-89, 27 So.2d at 841. Where a defendant fails to call a witness more available to him and presumptively in a closer relationship with him, the state is fully entitled to comment on the party's failure to call the witness. Id. In Brown, the Court approvingly cited the Supreme Court of Missouri, in which that court reasoned that the mere fact that both parties could subpoena witness did not make the witness equally available to them. Brown, 200 Miss. at 889-90, 27 So.2d at 841. Ross's allegation of error here fails. The rule of equal availability does not apply to these facts because one referred-to witness, Ricky Ross, is Ross's brother. Under the Brown rule, the state had every entitlement to comment on the absence of testimony from Ross's brother that his brother had fished with him all day. Given this alibi and Ross's relation to the absent witness, the state appropriately argued the logical inference that, but for Ricky Ross's inability to corroborate his defendant brother's testimony, he would have taken the stand. The fact that the state could have subpoened Ricky Ross is irrelevant. By the reasoning in Brown, Ross's brother stood in a community of personal interest with Ross such that he cannot be considered to have been equally available to the state. The other witness to whom the prosecutor referred, Johnson, poses a bit of a mystery. The only Johnson of record is the complainant. Ross, in his brief and without record support, asserts that the state had listed one Jeff Johnson on its list of witnesses. (A'nt Brf. 21). Based on the record, it seems more likely that or the Johnson constitutes a prosecutorial slip of the tongue, and that the prosecutor meant to refer to Robertson, Ross's employee who allegedly spent the day fishing, too. The jury may have understood the prosecutor to mean the complainant. This would constitute harmless error, since complainant Johnson obviously had already contradicted Ross's testimony. The Court holds that this assignment presents no reversible error.