Opinion ID: 1968741
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: What the Prosecutor Said

Text: In her closing argument, the prosecutor challenged defense counsel's theories about why Ms. Smith would have a motive to fabricate a charge of rape. The prosecutor summarized one of those theories as follows: They said she's angry with her boy friend. She's very, very angry with her boy friend because another woman came over and looked at the truck. So she went back in the alley with someone she doesn't know, went back there between those filthy dumpsters, had sex with him and then was embarrassed about it, so she made up a rape charge to make it look better. That's her motive. The prosecutor questioned whether this defense theory made any sense, and then added: The last thing she said to you on the witness stand. I asked her, Were you mad at your boy friend Pee Wee? She said yes. I said, Were you so mad that you would go out and have  that you went out and had sex with Anthony Gardner? or words to that effect. She said, Why would I have sex with someone I don't even know in an alley by trash cans?[ [25] ] There is no reason. There is no reason that makes any sense, not payback for money or getting somebody mad at you. This was her boy friend. They had a baby that was a year old, so they had been together for a while. You don't have a fight with your boy friend and go out and do something like this and then go through all of this afterwards. But you can decide, and you are the ones who have to decide. whether she had any motive to lie. [Emphasis added.] At the conclusion of the prosecutor's argument, defense counsel objected: MR. ROCHON [counsel for Walker]:... [W]hile Ms. Stewart has successfully objected to any reference to the prior sexual conduct of the complaining witness during this trial on the grounds it would be unfair to the government, she has now, in her closing, developed a few suggestions [that Ms. Smith] had a long-term, close, intimate relationship with this boy friend of hers, the father of her child, and that therefore she would not... go out and have sex with someone she didn't know. Well, this is evidence of chastity or its next best thing.... It is unfair to the defense for her [the prosecutor] to put in evidence of chastity. I have evidence of lack of chastity that I could have put in from other witnesses, including Thomasina Thompson. After Thomas' counsel joined in the objection, the prosecutor responded: ... My statement, I believe, was in talking about the defense theory that she was so angry with her boy friend that she would go out and do this. Indeed, I asked her, without objection, if she was angry and if she was so angry with him that she would do that. She said, Why would I?, et cetera, et cetera. I think the thrust of my argument was clear that this relationship  which had lasted at least a year because [there] was evidence at trial they had a baby, and counsel elicited he was the father of the babywas one that, just because she had an argument with him, she wasn't going to go out and have sex in a trash can. That's a fair reading of that. I did not introduce chastity. I didn't say a word about it. It was in the context of the defense theory that she did this to get revenge or get back at him because she was angry and jealous. The court denied defense counsel's requests to reopen their case and to instruct the jury about the restrictions of McLean: I am not going to grant the motion to reopen. I think that if you consider the totality of the argument, the mention that was made by Ms. Stewart was not a reference to chastity on the part of Ms. [Smith], but was a direct comment on the state of the evidence. I think it was a fair argument. Defense counsel revisited the issue the next day, and the court restated its ruling: ... [A]s I said yesterday, the way I construed the argument made by Ms. Stewart, it was a rebuttal to comments made by defense counsel as to why she would have a motive to basically yell rape, given the situation with her boy friend as of that night. I did not take the comment, in the context of the entire argument here, two hours' worth of arguments yesterday  actually more than that, almost two and a half hours of arguments ... to rise to the level of being a comment on whether Ms. [Smith] was chaste or not chaste, and therefore did not open the door, in my view, to the type of evidence which I accept your proffer that you were prepared to present yesterday.