Opinion ID: 1951964
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 20

Heading: Penalty-Phase Summation

Text: Defendant complains that the prosecution engaged in misconduct during its penalty-phase summation and thereby violated defendant's constitutional rights to a fair trial and a reliable sentencing determination. Several of the 180 points that defendant submitted as mitigating evidence focused on the abuse he and his mother suffered from defendant's stepfather, Walter Williams. In particular, defendant alleged that Williams beat defendant on a daily basis, that Williams physically frightened defendant, and that defendant lacked a father figure. The State called Williams to testify during the guilt phase but neither side called him during the penalty phase. Defendant's penalty-phase presentation relied heavily on Sheila Fairchild, a social investigator who interviewed a number of people involved with defendant's childhood. Fairchild did not interview Walter Williams, however. She testified on cross-examination that defendant's mother, Mattie Williams, told her that Mr. Williams did not wish to be interviewed. On redirect examination, defense counsel brought out that Mattie Williams became uncooperative during her interviews. When Fairchild called Ms. Williams to arrange a third interview, Ms. Williams told Fairchild she did not want to talk to Fairchild anymore. Fairchild testified that her interaction with Ms. Williams during this call made Fairchild physically frightened to go to the Williams' house to interview either Walter or Mattie Williams. The trial judge did not allow defense counsel to elicit that Fairchild's awareness of Mattie Williams' prior murder conviction contributed to her fear. In an attempt to undermine defendant's mitigating evidence, the prosecution criticized Ms. Fairchild's failure to interview Williams. The prosecutor submitted, If Miss Fairchild really wanted to talk to Walter Williams, it could have happened. So why didn't she? Because Walter Williams would have contradicted some of the mitigation evidence that Sheila Fairchild was supposed to provide. He would have told you that he didn't beat Ambrose Harris daily like the materials suggested. He would tell you that Ambrose Harris had a father figure, and it was he. He would have told you that there was no reason for Ambrose Harris to have been physically frightened of him, because he didn't do anything. Is that why Miss Fairchild didn't interview Walter Williams, because she was afraid of what Walter Williams might say if he was asked and liked it much better if she could rely on Mattie Williams' statements as to what Walter Williams allegedly did? After the State's summation, defense counsel requested a mistrial or a curative instruction. He argued that by highlighting Fairchild's failure to interview Walter Williams as a means of suggesting that Fairchild's investigation was biased, the prosecution had taken advantage of the defense's inability to elicit that Mattie Williams' murder conviction made Fairchild afraid to go to the Williams' house. After hearing the prosecution's argument in opposition to defendant's application, the trial judge declined to declare a mistrial and refused to issue a curative instruction. It said, The court merely adopts [the prosecution's] comments as the reasons or reason for the denial of the application, namely, that the State was suggesting that the witness could have contacted Walter Williams outside of the presence of Mattie Williams whom the witness feared. Defendant argues on appeal that the prosecution, rather than calling Walter Williams to the stand as it had done in the guilt phase (to establish the source of the shovels), instead submitted its own testimony to the jury about what Mr. Williams would have said had he testified. He contends that the summation impermissibly ranged beyond the scope of the evidence and thereby deprived defendant of his right to a fair trial. The prosecution in its summation may suggest legitimate inferences to be drawn from the record, but it commits misconduct when it goes beyond the facts before the jury. State v. Roach, 146 N.J. 208, 219, 680 A. 2d 634, cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 540, 136 L. Ed. 2d 424 (1996). The prosecution did that. There was no factual basis to support the prosecutor's assertion about what Walter Williams would have said had Sheila Fairchild interviewed him. A finding of misconduct does not end our inquiry, however. Prosecutorial misconduct is not ground for reversal of a criminal conviction unless the conduct was so egregious that it deprived defendant of a fair trial. Ramseur, supra, 106 N.J. at 322, 524 A. 2d 188. The offending remark was an isolated comment in the beginning of a summation that concentrated more intently on the presence of aggravating factors than it did on the lack of mitigating ones. It unfairly undermined only three of the 180 circumstances that defendant proffered in mitigation. It did little to deflect the jury's focus from defendant's mitigating theory, that he suffered through a horrendous childhood. Even if the jury believed the prosecution's conjecture about the way Walter Williams would have testified, it still had to confront unchallenged evidence that defendant grew up with an abusive, disturbed, and neglectful mother; that defendant suffered from several emotional disorders as a youth; and that defendant was institutionalized and diagnosed as homicidal during his childhood. The misconduct did not approach the unfairness seen in Rose, where the State warned jurors in summation that a death sentence was necessary to prevent defendant from murdering again, Rose, supra, 112 N.J. at 520, 548 A. 2d 1058, and where the prosecution suggested that a sentence other than death would violate the law. Id. at 523, 548 A. 2d 1058.