Opinion ID: 1686466
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Certain Closing Arguments of District Attorney

Text: It is also urged that the district attorney's closing arguments to the jury in certain assigned respects were so abusive, unsupported by evidence, and prejudicial as to constitute reversible error. This assignment was evidenced by a special bill of exceptions in the record, setting forth ten statements made by the district attorney, nine of which are argued in the brief of appellant. The first of these statements was cured by the correction of it by the district attorney himself. The second and third were proper and based either upon evidence in the record or permissible inferences from it. Moreover, objections to the first and third were sustained by the trial judge, and as to the second, the court instructed the jury to be guided by the evidence only. Appellant objected to the fourth and fifth statements, but concedes the fourth to be proper, and obtained no ruling by the trial judge on either of those objections, and, therefore, can not complain of them. We have considered carefully the remaining five statements in the bill of exceptions, and are of the opinion that, although they were improper, they cannot cause a reversal. (Hn 4) After each of the statements, the court sustained objections to it. The cumulative effect on a jury of the trial judge's sustaining a defendant's objection to argument and often admonishing the state's attorney to stay within the evidence usually has the effect of curing the improper conduct and prejudicing the state's rather than the defendant's case. Thomas v. State, 1946, 200 Miss. 220, 26 So. (2d) 469; Moon v. State, 1936, 176 Miss. 72, 168 So. 476. And as was said in Bufkin v. State, 1923, 134 Miss. 116, 98 So. 455, 457, if the judge promptly instructs the jury to disregard such comment we will assume that the jury obeyed the judge's instruction and did not regard it, unless it affirmatively appears from the record to the contrary, or unless the statement is of such extreme prejudicial nature as to convince the court that it probably affected the result. Cavanah v. State, 1879, 56 Miss. 299. The test in each case is necessarily dependent upon the particular circumstances of that case. Moreover, this case aroused considerable publicity, indignation, and emotions on both sides, and no doubt the eloquent arguments of able counsel for appellant contributed somewhat to the vigor and enthusiasm of the district attorney's argument. As was said in Blackwell v. State, 1931, 161 Miss. 487, 497, 135 So. 192, 194, 137 So. 189, it is difficult ... to tell ... its relation to the argument of the attorney for the appellant in the trial. In Nelms & Blum Company v. Fink, 1930, 159 Miss. 372, 381, 131 So. 817, 820, the Court commented: It is always a difficult matter, as well as a delicate one, to determine whether there has been an abuse of the privilege of advocacy in the argument of the causes, except in a few cases where it is so palpably evident that the case has been prejudiced by a statement of facts not in evidence or by gross invectives and abuse, and we do not have the advantage that the trial judge has of hearing the argument as a whole. The trial judge has a peculiar and distinct advantage of the judges of this court in judging upon such questions, because he is not only familiar with the evidence and the atmosphere of the case, as it may be called, but he has heard the entire argument and knows the setting that the language complained of has in connection with the argument on both sides of a case. Nor do the arguments objected to fall within any of the classes for which reversal is often had, such as comment on the failure of defendant to testify, Gibbs v. State, 1933, 167 Miss. 598, 149 So. 796, abusive language aimed at the defendant, Hampton v. State, 1906, 88 Miss. 257, 40 So. 545, or an appeal to racial prejudice, Harris v. State, Miss. 1950, 46 So. (2d) 91. The propriety of the argument is to be adjudged in the light of several factors peculiar to this case. Among these are, first, the rather astonishing range which the testimony took, encompassing prolonged details which were as irrelevant as they were salacious. Secondly, one of the assignments of error directed to parts of the argument is based upon the asserted fact of the presence in the gallery of the courtroom of a great number of high school students who, for some reason, or without reason, were absent during school hours from the high school in which appellant had been a student. If the implication of their presence was not well-founded, the alleged remarks of the district attorney were meaningless and without prejudice. If these students were truant or present with permission, it is possible that Section 26 of Mississippi Constitution of 1890 may not have been available to clear the courtroom of mere curiosity seekers in this type of case. At any rate, this circumstance may be deemed a regrettable incident of a public trial. However, our function is merely to adjudicate the fact of prejudice vel non, and from the intimations brought into the record by defendant, we cannot find that the presence of these students, if such was a fact, and a reference to a fact obvious to the jury without need of any directed attention, was prejudicial to the appellant. The trial court was scrupulously fair and insistent upon a full presentation of defendant's case. We must assume, as the court said in Gray v. State, 1907, 90 Miss. 235, 242, 43 So. 289, 290, that the jurymen are men having and exercising average intelligence and average integrity, capable mentally of understanding the written instructions of the court and the argument of counsel, and capable morally of having the courage and firmness to draw their own conclusions for themselves from the law as written and from the testimony as delivered, without reference to improper appeals from counsel on either side. The administration of justice is a pre-eminently practical thing. The basic conclusion to be drawn from the many decisions in the history of this court concerning argument of counsel is that counsel has an extremely liberal latitude in arguing a controversy, and that this court's responsibility is to weigh the arguments assigned as error in the scale with the entire context of the case. We have done that here and do not think that the arguments complained of affected the result in the trial court. Appellant had a fair and full trial in the circuit court, and was ably represented both there and here. His guilt or innocence was a question for the jury, and we find no errors of law which would justify setting aside that verdict. Affirmed.