Opinion ID: 2514440
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Prosecution's explanation of aggravators and the four possible punishments in this case

Text: Valdez argues that the prosecutor's explanation of aggravators and the four possible punishments during jury selection was argumentative, was not supported by the trial evidence, consisted of the prosecutor's personal opinion, and was irrelevant and prejudicial to the jury selection process. A prosecutor has the duty to refrain from stating facts in opening statement that he [or she] cannot prove at trial. [54] Further, as noted above, a prosecutor should not inject his or her own personal beliefs and opinions. [55] During jury selection, the prosecutor addressed the charges and possible punishments as follows: There's two other charges here: Attempt[ed] murder and assault with a deadly weapon. In the event you find him guilty of that, you would not be sentencing him on that. The [c]ourt decides that. So those four punishments are the range that you would be determining, and as we've kind of alluded to, we have to prove an aggravator or multiple aggravators that are statutorily required. .... There are a lot[ ] of first-degree murders out there that we'll never ever have the opportunity for the death sentence, and the reason why is because there's no aggravators. The defense objected that this was not a correct statement of the law. The district court responded that the State had conveyed the general rule and instructed the parties to move on. Although the prosecutor referred to unprovable facts regarding the first-degree murder cases, which were not capital cases, and he injected his own personal opinion, we conclude that this error was nonconstitutional because the prosecutor stated the general rule regarding the court's sentencing for attempted murder and assault and the State's burden to prove aggravators. We further conclude, however, that although this error alone would not warrant reversal, it contributed to cumulative error that requires reversal.