Opinion ID: 2339307
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: First Remark

Text: Bennington's first objection is to the following remark during the prosecutor's main portion of his closing argument: I want to stand here right now and ask you, don't find him guilty of attempted rape. Find him guilty of rape. That's what he did. Bennington contends the prosecutor improperly voiced his personal opinion regarding Bennington's guilt. See State v. Corbett, 281 Kan. 294, 315, 130 P.3d 1179 (2006) (Prosecutors must not state a personal opinion regarding the ultimate guilt or innocence of the defendant.). Viewed in isolation, That's what he did, sounds like a personal opinion. But when placed in context, this statement is not outside the wide latitude allowed attorneys during argument. The statement was made during the prosecutor's explanation of the elements of attempted rape. The prosecutor stated: [Instruction] 11 is attempted rape. It's the lesser included offense of rape. Bottom line is, when [V.B.] tells [her niece] he tried, this is kind of, frankly, a fall back. If you're not convinced that there was actual penetration, if you're not maybe sure what all that business about injury to the interior part of [V.B.'s] genitals means, if you're notif you don't know, just not sure what to think of all that, then at the very least he [Bennington] was trying. Clearly there was penetration, no question of that. But if all else fails, there's an attempted rape here, at least based on what [V.B.] told [her niece].  I want to stand here right now and ask you, don't find him guilty of attempted rape. Find him guilty of rape. That's what he did.  (Emphasis added.) Before making this remark, the prosecutor had also gone through the elements of rape and discussed the requirement of penetration, however slight. A review of the entire statement shows that the prosecutor was accurately describing the evidence and relating it to the elements of attempted rape versus rape, and the statement, That's what he did, was relating the facts to those elements. A prosecutor has wide latitude to craft arguments that include reasonable inferences to be drawn from the evidence. Stone, 291 Kan. at 19, 237 P.3d 1229; See State v. Scaife, 286 Kan. 614, 623-24, 186 P.3d 755 (2008). Bennington's argument fails on the first step of the prosecutorial misconduct analysisthe prosecutor's remark did not exceed the wide latitude afforded to the prosecution to argue inferences from the evidence presented.