Opinion ID: 1652618
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Requests for Plain Error Relief

Text: Johnson contends that a great amount of evidence was improperly admitted and was so prejudicial that it amounted to plain error. Admission of the evidence, he adds, violated his rights to due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. The most prominent of that evidence includes: 1) the admission of tapes and a transcript of a recorded conversation between Johnson and a negotiator; 2) the negotiator's testimony explaining various parts of the tape that were not clear; and 3) the admission of Johnson's confession, and the written report prepared by the officer who elicited Johnson's confession. Additionally, Johnson complains that the State engaged in a wide variety of allegedly improper questions and comments throughout the guilt phase, from opening statements through closing argument. Those questions and comments included: 1) a comment on Johnson's right to remain silent, 2) a statement that Johnson held Mrs. Miller and the entire town of California hostage, 3) speculation on the possible testimony of Vietnam veterans who were not called as witnesses, 4) a comment that Johnson's defense was a slap to every veteran, 5) a comment referring to God, 6) a question that suggested that Johnson was faking PTSD, 7) a question about the percentage of persons in the United States who suffer from insomnia, and 8) a question whether Johnson's demeanor at work had changed so that he might be fired and receive unemployment compensation. Johnson also asks for plain error review regarding the exclusion of certain evidence concerning his background and reputation. The exclusion, he claims, prevented him from presenting a defense and thus deprived him of his rights to due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. The evidence, nearly all of which was cumulative, included the following: 1) Johnson's reputation in the community, 2) specific examples of good acts by Johnson, 3) whether Johnson attended church; 4) Johnson's treatment of his wife Jerri Wilson, 4) people's reaction to the news of the murders and that Johnson was suspected, 5) why Johnson's friends believed that he could not have done the murders, 6) how Johnson normally behaves, 7) how Johnson reacted to the death of his friend Dallas Cooper, and 8) the morale of Johnson's unit in Vietnam. As stated, no objections were made to any of the evidence admitted nor to any of the State's allegedly improper comments and questions. Furthermore, Johnson failed to preserve the alleged error regarding the exclusion of some of his background and character evidence. This Court declines to undertake plain error review because there has been no showing of manifest injustice or miscarriage of justice. Rule 30.20; Simmons, 955 S.W.2d at 736. Johnson's corresponding claims of ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to raise objections are denied because he has shown no reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different.