Opinion ID: 2275536
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Appeal to the emotions and community sentiment and sympathy for decedent's relatives [11] and friends

Text: Nichole Burks became emotional on the stand and refused to answer questions on cross-examination because she was crying uncontrollably. The government stated for the record that she was scared to death. And I think she testified hesitatingly at the first trial as well, although just for the record she is actually crying. During closing argument, over objection, the government stressed that Nichole Burks had cried during her testimony, and was afraid, stating, It wasn't a fun thing for her to do. She wasn't enjoying herself. You probably weren't enjoying watching her, that young lady, go through that. Did she appear to be terrified? Did she appear upset? The prosecutor reinforced the gang violence theme by saying, And one of the more important things that Calvin Gaither said was as we kind of developed thisyou know, he agreed to squash the beef, right? He said look, you lost oneI'm sorryCalvin Gaither said you lost one; we lost one. Let's squash the beef, all right? During rebuttal, the prosecutor exhorted the jury as the conscience of the community, to find appellant guilty: Mr. Horton [defense counsel] says well, the defendant says he didn't do it. Folks, when the defendant took the stand, did you expect he was going to get up there and say, yeah, I killed Little Dennis. Of course not. He's motivated by self-preservation. He doesn't want to be held accountable. You all as the conscience of the community are the one who has to place responsibility Defense counsel: May we approach please? Court: Overruled. Prosecutor: That's your job as members of the community. Appellant contends that the trial court erroneously permitted the government to appeal to the jurors' emotions by presenting and stressing Nichole Burks's emotional trial testimony and the fear of gang violence in closing argument. The government argues that the testimony was relevant and the argument a reiteration of facts and circumstances which were already before the jury. We have said, and repeat, that prosecutorial comments designed to inflame the jury's emotions and urging them to send messages on behalf of their communities are irrelevant and improper. See Hawthorne v. United States, 476 A.2d 164, 170 (D.C.1984); Powell v. United States, 455 A.2d 405, 410 (D.C.1982). When there is improper argument by the prosecutor, the conviction will be reversed if the error rises to the level of substantial prejudice, i.e., unless we can say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Powell, 455 A.2d at 411 (internal quotations omitted). Decisive factors are the gravity of the misconduct, its direct relationship to the issue of innocence or guilt, the effect of corrective instructions, if any, and the weight of the evidence of appellant's guilt. See Hawthorne, 476 A.2d at 170. In Hawthorne, we held that the prosecutor's arguments substantially prejudiced the appellants because the prosecutor had delivered most of his closing argument in the first person voice of the murder victim and presented himself as if he were the victim. See id. at 173. The court found these tactics to be an ill-founded rhetorical device and used thoughts of the victim which obviously could not be in evidence. See id. at 171. In Powell, the prosecutor argued, among other things, Isn't it time that this jury, acting as the conscience of this community, stood up and sent a message loud and clear to [the defendants that] we don't tolerate . . . the robbing of its citizens. 455 A.2d at 410. We held that the request that the jurors send a message to appellants was irrelevant and inappropriate, because jurors are not empaneled to send messages on behalf of their community. Id. We agree that the prosecutor should not have highlighted the emotional impact of the testimony during closing argumentparticularly with respect to Nichole Burks being scared to deathbut the jurors had already heard the evidence and seen the witness themselves. Of greater concern are the prosecutor's reiteration of Gaither's testimony implying gang violence and the prosecutor's improper appeals to community conscience during rebuttal argument. On balance, however, we do not think these comments improper though they weresubstantially prejudiced appellant's case. The prosecutor reiterated the statements Gaither had made about squashing the beef and we lost one; you lost one, but did not expressly refer to gang violence as appellant's motive for killing Dennis Hines. The prosecutor's rebuttal included two phrases about the jury's role in the community, but did not request that the jury send a message. We view the comments at issue in their context. Considering the significant evidence that appellant was the shooter, we do not believe that these comments substantially prejudiced appellant. See Powell, 455 A.2d at 411. Affirmed. SCHWELB, Associate Judge, concurring in the judgment: In my opinion, the inconclusive discussion in the majority opinion of Plummer's unresolved contentions is unnecessary, since all members of the division agree that any hypothetical error was harmless. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment only.