Opinion ID: 2443539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Convicting Petitioner to Combat the Drug Problem

Text: Petitioner also argues that the prosecutor implicitly urged the jurors to convict . . . [Petitioner] in order to address the drug problem. Specifically, Petitioner takes issue with the prosecutor's statements that drug dealers are the root of all evil and that Petitioner is the problem. [6] Based on these statements, Petitioner argues that the prosecutor was effectively suggesting to the jury that it should convict [Petitioner] in order to prevent drug abuse. We agree with Petitioner that the prosecutor's statements were improper. In Hill, we stated that appeals to jurors to convict a defendant in order to preserve the safety or quality of the communities are improper and prejudicial. 355 Md. at 225, 734 A.2d at 209. We then noted with approval that the Court of Special Appeals had declared improper a prosecutor's statement to the jury that `by your vote you can say no to drug dealers, to people who rain destruction.' Hill, 355 Md. at 225, 734 A.2d at 209 (quoting Couser v. State, 36 Md.App. 485, 374 A.2d 399 (1977)); see also Holmes v. State, 119 Md.App. 518, 705 A.2d 118 (1998) (concluding that the prosecutor improperly implore[d] the jurors to consider their own interests and therefore violate the prohibition against the `golden rule' argument). We further noted that [c]ourts throughout the country have condemned arguments of that kind, which are unfairly prejudicial and risk diverting the focus of the jury away from its sole proper function of judging the defendant on the evidence presented. Hill, 355 Md. at 225, 734 A.2d at 209. The prosecutor's statements that Detective Taylor had called drug dealers the root of all evil and that Petitioner is the problem are precisely the type of statements that we forbade in Hill. The prosecutor's root of all evil statement alone may not have been improper, as she was commenting on Detective Taylor's testimony that [t]he person selling drugs is the person that's the root of the evil. [7] The prosecutor's subsequent statements, however, undoubtedly crossed the line. She then stated that [i]f there wasn't any drug dealers, they wouldn't be selling the drugs, and the buyers wouldn't need the help and that the problem today is seated over there. These additional statements show that the prosecutor, by referring to drug dealers as the root of all evil and identifying Petitioner as a drug dealer, was specifically referring to Petitioner as the root of all evil. In doing so, the prosecutor effectively asked the jury to combat two particular evilsdrug dealing and drug useand identified Petitioner as the problem that caused those evils. The inescapable inference from the prosecutor's argument was that the jury could combat drug dealing and drug use generally by convicting Petitioner. Indeed, we can see no other purpose for the prosecutor's line of argument. Petitioner was not, however, on trial for committing or contributing to drug dealing and drug use generally; he was on trial for allegedly committing the drug possession and drug sale offenses that the State charged against him. Arguing that the jury should convict Petitioner to combat drug dealing and drug use generally was therefore improper. C.