Opinion ID: 743074
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutional Error Analysis

Text: 71 Although we have unearthed no federal case which examines this issue, numerous state courts have addressed it. The highest courts in Connecticut, Maine, the District of Columbia, Vermont, and Massachusetts, along with the Court of Appeals of Washington State, have agreed that such prosecutorial commentary is improper. State v. Cassidy, 236 Conn. 112, 672 A.2d 899, 905-08 (1996); State v. Jones, 580 A.2d 161, 162-63 (Me.1990) (prosecutor's comment was improper but defendant failed to preserve issue for appeal); Coreas v. United States, 565 A.2d 594, 604 (D.C.Ct.App.1989); State v. Hemingway, 148 Vt. 90, 528 A.2d 746, 747-48 (1987); Commonwealth v. Person, 400 Mass. 136, 508 N.E.2d 88, 90-91 (1987); Dyson v. United States, 418 A.2d 127, 131 (D.C.Ct.App.1980); State v. Johnson, 80 Wash.App. 337, 908 P.2d 900, 902-03 (1996). See also, Commonwealth v. Elberry, 38 Mass.App.Ct. 912, 645 N.E.2d 41, 42-43 (1995) (although comments constituted error, they were immediately cured by trial court); Jenkins v. United States, 374 A.2d 581, 583-84 (D.C.Ct.App.1977). On the other hand, the Supreme Court of Michigan and the intermediate appellate courts of Minnesota, New Jersey, and Texas have held otherwise. See People v. Buckey, 424 Mich. 1, 378 N.W.2d 432, 436-39 (1985) (disagreeing with People v. Smith, 73 Mich.App. 463, 252 N.W.2d 488, 492 (1977) (comments, though ultimately harmless, were inadvisable) and People v. Fredericks, 125 Mich.App. 114, 335 N.W.2d 919, 921-22 (1983) (remarks seriously prejudiced defendant's case, which depended upon his own testimony)); State v. Grilli, 369 N.W.2d 35, 37 (Minn.Ct.App.1985); State v. Robinson, 157 N.J.Super. 118, 384 A.2d 569, 569-70 (App.Div.1978). These courts have addressed prosecutorial summation arguments virtually identical to the one made in Agard. 5 72 Other state courts have addressed similar comments of prosecutors during cross-examination of the defendant. Although many of the state cases rely upon and make reference to summation cases and cross-examination cases as though they were analytically interchangeable, we believe that they should be addressed separately because summation remarks raise constitutional issues which either are not present or are of less concern when made upon cross-examination. 6 We today express no opinion as to the propriety or constitutionality of similar remarks made during cross-examination. 7 We hold only that it is constitutional error for a prosecutor to insinuate to the jury for the first time during summation that the defendant's presence in the courtroom at trial provided him with a unique opportunity to tailor his testimony to match the evidence. Such comments violate a criminal defendant's right to confrontation, his right to testify on his own behalf, and his right to receive due process and a fair trial. 73
74 The Sixth Amendment provides, in relevant part, that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.... U.S. Const. Amend. VI. This right applies to state as well as federal prosecutions via the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1068, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). One of the most basic of the rights guaranteed by the Confrontation Clause is the accused's right to be present in the courtroom at every stage of his trial. Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 338, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1058, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970) (citing Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 372, 13 S.Ct. 136, 137, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1892)). 75 We find that a prosecutor's summation remarks noting the defendant's unique opportunity to be present at trial infringe upon that constitutionally guaranteed right. The remarks invite the jury to consider the defendant's exercise of his right to confrontation as evidence of guilt, and therefore penalize him for exercising that right. The comments, which imply that a truthful defendant would have stayed out of the courtroom before testifying or would have testified before other evidence was presented, 8 force defendants either to forgo the right to be present at trial, forgo their Fifth Amendment right to testify on their own behalf, or risk the jury's suspicion. The Sixth Amendment does not permit those comments. 76 The remarks are analogous to the tactic of suggesting to juries that guilt can be implied from a defendant's decision to exercise his Fifth Amendment right not to testify, a tactic which has been held unconstitutional. In Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), the Supreme Court explained: 77 [C]omment on the refusal to testify is a remnant of the 'inquisitorial system of criminal justice,' which the Fifth Amendment outlaws. It is a penalty imposed by courts for exercising a constitutional privilege. It cuts down on the privilege by making its assertion costly. It is said, however, that the inference of guilt for failure to testify as to facts peculiarly within the accused's knowledge is in any event natural and irresistible, and that comment on the failure does not magnify that inference into a penalty for asserting a constitutional privilege. What the jury may infer, given no help from the court, is one thing. What it may infer when the court solemnizes the silence of the accused into evidence against him is quite another. 78 Id. at 614, 85 S.Ct. at 1232-33 (citations and footnote omitted). The Griffin Court recognized that such commentary effectively penalizes the defendant for exercising his Fifth Amendment rights, and held it unconstitutional to require defendants to choose between their rights. 9 We believe that Griffin principles are appropriately applied to the case at bar. 79 We therefore hold that the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation prohibits a prosecutor from commenting in summation that a defendant's testimony may be viewed in light of his presence in the courtroom during trial, because such comments violate the defendant's right to be present at trial. The Supreme Court has indicated that Sixth Amendment rights may at times be overcome by an important state interest. Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836, 850, 110 S.Ct. 3157, 3166, 111 L.Ed.2d 666 (1990) ([A] defendant's right to confront accusatory witnesses may be satisfied absent a physical, face-to-face confrontation at trial only where denial of such confrontation is necessary to further an important public policy and only where the reliability of the testimony is otherwise assured.). See also, Davis v. Alaska, 415 U.S. 308, 319-20, 94 S.Ct. 1105, 1111-12, 39 L.Ed.2d 347 (1974). We thus look to whether important reasons sufficient to justify the infringement upon the defendant's right to be present at trial existed here. 80 The State presents the argument made by the Michigan Supreme Court that such commentary is not improper because it is a fair attack upon a witness's credibility. The Buckey court reasoned that [o]pportunity and motive to fabricate testimony are permissible areas of inquiry of any witness, Buckey, 378 N.W.2d at 439, 10 and stated that the argument is perfectly proper comment on credibility. Id. 11 See also, Grilli, 369 N.W.2d at 37 ([t]he prosecutor was free to argue and attack appellant's credibility.) We next assess whether the prosecutor's need to attack a testifying defendant's credibility is an important reason justifying an infringement of his right to be present at trial. 81 We take as the starting point of our analysis the distinction expressed by the Washington State Court of Appeals between a prosecutor's argument that a defendant has tailored his testimony to meet the state's evidence, and her argument that a defendant, by virtue of being present in the courtroom during trial, has gained an opportunity, unavailable to any other witness in the trial, to tailor his testimony to meet the evidence. Compare Johnson, 908 P.2d at 902 (state may not argue that, by virtue of attending trial, defendant has gained unique opportunity to tailor his or her testimony) with State v. Smith, 82 Wash.App. 327, 917 P.2d 1108, 1111-12 (1996) (state may argue that defendant has tailored his or her testimony to state's proof). The remarks made in Smith may be permissible commentary upon the defendant's credibility as a witness, while those made in Johnson, centering upon his unique opportunity to fabricate testimony as the only witness able to personally hear all the evidence previously presented to the jury, are not permissible because they amount to nothing more than an attack upon the exercise of rights the Constitution grants criminal defendants. 12 Agard's prosecutor made remarks similar to those in Johnson, so we limit our discussion to such comments and do not reach the Smith-like remarks. 82 This distinction, as well as that made above between cross-examination questions and summation comments, is relevant to whether the need to dispute the defendant's credibility is so important as to overcome his right to confrontation. In the light of these distinctions, we think that the asserted need to comment upon Agard's credibility carries little weight on these facts. It is perfectly proper for a prosecutor to cross-examine a defendant about those portions of his testimony which have indicia of fabrication. When, however, a prosecutor raises the specter of fabrication 1) for the first time on summation; 2) without facts in evidence to support the inference; or 3) in a manner which directly attacks the defendant's right to be present during his entire trial, our alarm bells begin to ring. When all three circumstances are present, the bells become shrill sirens. Such commentary is not proper comment upon credibility. Lawyers may not raise innuendo relating to bias or credibility from the shadows of unlitigated facts for the first time in their closing arguments. Such tactics prevent rebuttal and cross-examination, which are the engines of the truth-finding process in an adversarial criminal trial. Without facts in evidence to support an inference of fabrication, such remarks are prejudicial and not at all probative. They certainly do not provide an important reason for us to cut back on a defendant's exercise of his Sixth Amendment rights. 83 Our holding does not jeopardize the state's opportunity to attack credibility. If a prosecutor's concern about the defendant's credibility is legitimate, she has readily available alternate means of questioning him. For example, she is free to cross-examine him about discrepancies between his pre-trial account of events and his testimonial account. Having introduced this evidence, she may then remark upon those discrepancies during her summation. 13 She is also free, of course, to point out that he has motive to lie in order to escape incarceration (as Agard's prosecutor in fact did), and to remark upon that motive in summation (as she also did). Only those comments which specifically target and cast suspicion upon the defendant's unique Sixth Amendment right to be present at his trial and hear all testimony are forbidden by the Constitution; those remarks are not simple commentary upon credibility, nor are they necessary to a prosecutor's argument that the defendant lacks credibility, if that argument has a basis in fact and not only in innuendo. 14 84 We therefore hold that the prosecutor's summation remarks violated Agard's Sixth Amendment right to confrontation. 15 85
86 The Constitution provides a criminal defendant with an implicit right to testify in his own defense. United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 96, 113 S.Ct. 1111, 1117, 122 L.Ed.2d 445 (1993); Rock, 483 U.S. at 49, 107 S.Ct. at 2708. That right springs from the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, U.S. Const. Amend. VI, and is also a necessary corollary of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against compelled testimony. 16 Rock, 483 U.S. at 51-53, 107 S.Ct. at 2708-10. 87 As noted in the discussion of the defendant's right to be present at trial, the Supreme Court has already held that commentary which chills the defendant's right to testify on his own behalf is unconstitutional. Griffin, 380 U.S. at 615, 85 S. Ct. at 1233. The remarks made by the prosecution here have a similar chilling effect upon the same right by forcing the defendant to choose between having his testimony viewed without unfair comment or exercising his constitutional rights to testify and to be present at trial. We therefore hold that these summation comments violate a defendant's right to testify on his own behalf and correspondingly the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. 88
89 In addition to providing a path for the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to attach to state prosecutions, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a state criminal defendant due process of law, 17 including a fair trial. In determining whether prosecutorial misconduct during summation amounts to a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has stated that [t]he relevant question is whether the prosecutors' comments 'so infected the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process.'  Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 181, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 2471, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986) (quoting Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 643, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 1871, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974)); Gonzalez v. Sullivan, 934 F.2d 419, 424 (2d Cir.1991). See also, United States ex rel. Haynes v. McKendrick, 481 F.2d 152 (2d Cir.1973) (racially biased summation remarks violated due process rights of defendant). We have previously held that [w]e must examine the remarks in the context of the entire trial to determine whether the prosecutor's behavior amounted to prejudicial error. In determining whether there is prejudicial error we look at three factors: the severity of the misconduct, the measures adopted to cure the misconduct, and the certainty of conviction absent the misconduct. Strouse v. Leonardo, 928 F.2d 548, 557 (2d Cir.1991); see Bentley v. Scully, 41 F.3d 818, 824 (2d Cir.1994), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1152, 116 S.Ct. 1029, 134 L.Ed.2d 107 (1996). 90 In assessing whether Agard's right to due process has been violated, then, we first examine the severity of the prosecutor's misconduct. The State argues that the comments were brief and isolated and therefore not severe. See Bentley, 41 F.3d at 825. Yet, the length of the commentary is not automatically decisive. As the late Judge Frank once said, [improper prosecutorial summation] remarks [have not been deemed] harmless because compressed into a single sentence, for experience teaches that a poisonous suggestion of that kind needs no elaboration. United States v. Antonelli Fireworks Co., 155 F.2d 631, 646 (2d Cir.1946) (Frank, J. dissenting) (footnote omitted). A comment which directly disparages the defendant's exercise of constitutional rights can be severe misconduct regardless of its length. More important to due process analysis are the nature and effect of the remarks. Under other circumstances, a prosecutor's closing commentary upon a witness' opportunity to fabricate testimony might only implicate state evidentiary law; when the witness in question is the defendant, however, and the commentary goes to the heart of the constitutionally guaranteed rights to be present at trial and testify on one's own behalf, the very fairness of the entire trial is compromised. 18 91 Moving on with the three-step analysis, we note that the trial court took no curative measures to correct the prosecutor's error (an unsurprising result, given that he did not find her comments to be erroneous). Though it is true that the judge instructed the jury that the lawyer's comments were not evidence and that the jury's recollections of events should control, see Charge at 827, this is a standard jury instruction and was not specifically directed at curing the error nor was it made at the time of the prosecutor's improper remarks. 92 Finally, we are not at all certain that Agard would have been convicted had the error not occurred. As we have already discussed, credibility was unquestionably the central issue at trial. The fact that the jury convicted only on anal sodomy and not on vaginal rape or oral sodomy indicates that it might have had trouble believing all of Winder's testimony; perhaps, without the prosecutor's summation comments, it would have believed Agard in the entirety. We cannot be certain. Our three-step test therefore indicates that the prosecutor's remarks, unchallenged by the trial judge, did deny Agard a fair trial. 93 Viewing these comments in the context of the entire trial, we also recognize that prosecutorial commentary which tramples upon a defendant's constitutional rights has been held to implicate the entire fairness of a trial more than non-constitutional error. When rejecting the defendant's due process claim in Darden, the Supreme Court stated that the prosecutors' argument did not manipulate or misstate the evidence, nor did it implicate other specific rights of the accused such as the right to counsel or the right to remain silent. Darden, 477 U.S. at 181-82, 106 S.Ct. at 2471-72 (emphasis added). In contrast, Agard's specific rights to testify on his own behalf, to compulsory process, and to confront the witnesses against him were all implicated by the comments we are reviewing. The entire fairness of his trial, and thereby due process, were likewise infringed. We therefore find that Agard's Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law was violated by the trial court's error.