Opinion ID: 1776668
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Whether the trial court erred in allowing the prosecution to make prejudicial and inflammatory statements in closing arguments.

Text: ¶ 38. Randolph asserts that the prosecution made prejudicial and inflammatory statements about his drug use during closing argument. Randolph concedes that he did not contemporaneously object to the comment at trial; and therefore, the trial judge did not have the opportunity to admonish the jury to ignore the remark. Nevertheless, Randolph urges this Court to consider the comment. The only argument that Randolph asserts for not objecting at trial to the comment is for strategy reasons. Randolph included this issue in his Motion for New Trial which was denied in totality by the trial court. ¶ 39. In Williams v. State, 512 So.2d 666, 670 (Miss.1987), defense counsel did not object to prosecutor's closing argument, and this Court held that [t]he failure of an objection is fatal. Id. at 670 (citing Johnson v. State, 477 So.2d 196 (Miss.1985)). This Court has held that [i]f no contemporaneous objection is made, the error, if any, is waived. Walker v. State, 671 So.2d 581, 597 (Miss.1995) (citing Foster v. State, 639 So.2d 1263,1270 (Miss.1994)). The contemporaneous objection rule is in place to enable the court to correct an error with proper instructions to the jury whenever possible. Gray v. State, 487 So.2d 1304, 1312 (Miss.1986) (citing Baker v. State 327 So.2d 288, 292-93 (Miss.1976)). To preserve an issue for appeal a contemporaneous objection must be made. Ratliff v. State, 313 So.2d 386 (Miss.1975). See also Box v. State, 610 So.2d 1148 (Miss.1992)(defendant failed to contemporaneously object to the prosecutor's remarks during closing argument and a motion for mistrial, made after jury verdict of guilty, was deemed too late); Monk v. State, 532 So.2d 592, 600 (Miss.1988)(contemporaneous objection during closing argument must be made, otherwise it is waived); Gray v. State, 487 So.2d 1304 (Miss.1986)(contemporaneous objection during prosecution's closing argument must be made or it is deemed waived); and Coleman v. State, 378 So.2d 640, 649 (Miss.1979) (defendant failed to object to a statement by the district attorney in closing argument and a motion for mistrial after the jury had retired was deemed too late). ¶ 40. In the case sub judice, Randolph admits that he did not contemporaneously object to the remark. In addition, he does not specifically cite the location in the record where the prosecution allegedly made an inflammatory remark pertaining to drug use during the closing argument. [1] This Court finds that the law is well settled on the point of the necessity of contemporaneous objections during closing arguments at trial. An objection was not made by Randolph during the prosecution's closing argument, and thus this issue is waived on appeal.