Opinion ID: 1130197
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: appellant was denied a fair and impartial trial due to the improper and prejudicial conduct of the state before the jury.

Text: The appellant argues that the prosecuting attorney engaged in personal abuse and vilification of him and overstepped the bounds of proper legal argument before the jury. In his opening statement, District Attorney Bobby Williams, made the following comments: And, you'll hear him, ladies and gentlemen, in his own words, ... describe to you those acts of depravation that this savage animal inflicted upon those helpless girls.       Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the opportunity to prove this animal guilty. Appellant's counsel objected to the last statement, which was sustained by the lower court. In closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Taylor Buntin made the following statements: [Harris] is a perverted degenerate that roamed the countryside of this county and preyed upon helpless and innocent children.       [W]ould it be fair to society to have a man like this released after serving a few years of his natural life; would it be fair to turn this perverted, degenerate aloose [sic] to prey upon other innocent, young, twelve-year-old girls who live in our county or any other county?       Does anybody here think that he's shown any remorse during this trial? Apparently, not to be outdone, District Attorney Williams, in closing, remarked: I suppose an apology is in order. You may think that's strange. You'll recall that I called [Harris] a savage animal Monday. I apologize to the animal kingdom.       I suggest to you ... that the lawmakers in our land who say that life imprisonment is the maximum you can have, made a serious mistake.       I suggest to you ... that this is the type of case where six of you ought to be coming out of that jury room with a verdict of life imprisonment before the other six even get in there. Objections were timely made to the argument of Assistant District Attorney Buntin and District Attorney Williams and were sustained by the court. The lower court likewise instructed the jury to disregard those remarks. In Reed v. State, 197 So.2d 811 (Miss. 1967), the Court said: [A]ll courts are agreed that it is the power and duty of the trial court to see that the privilege of argument is not abused. And where the abuse in a given case has been of such a character and has run to such an extent that there could be no denial that the abuse has been extreme and intolerable, the duty of the judge is to interfere of his own motion. 197 So.2d at 816. See also Brush v. Laurendine, 168 Miss. 7, 150 So. 818 (1933). Prosecutors should not indulge in personal abuse or vilification of the defendant. They should not permit themselves to be provoked into the use of language and descriptions unbecoming to dignified courts of justice. This Court has condemned arguments by prosecuting attorneys which referred to the defendant as scum and a professional criminal, along with many other degrading terms. In Bridgeforth v. State, 498 So.2d 796 (Miss. 1986), the Court said: The interest of the State of Mississippi is best served by the orderly rational lawful presentation of the facts and the law. That is the way the criminal justice system is designed to operate. Justice is not served by attorneys who use closing argument to express inflammatory personal ideas or engage in personal vilification. The purpose of closing argument is to enlighten the jury, not to enrage it. Where counsel lacks the self-discipline necessary to avoid arguments such as these, that discipline should be imposed by the trial judge from the bench. An otherwise orderly and fair trial can be instantly destroyed by such unprepared intemperate argument. The price that all of us must pay for these untimely flights of oratorical fancy is far too high. Bridgeforth v. State, supra, at 801. This Court has often held that jurors are presumed to follow the trial judge's instructions, such as were made here, telling the jury to disregard the remarks of counsel. Shoemaker v. State, 502 So.2d 1193 (Miss. 1987); Gray v. State, 472 So.2d 409 (Miss. 1985); Evans v. State, 422 So.2d 737 (Miss. 1982); Ratliff v. State, 317 So.2d 403 (Miss. 1975); Clanton v. State, 279 So.2d 599 (Miss. 1973). In addition to the principle announced above, we are convinced that had the trial judge overruled the objections and failed to instruct the jury to disregard them, the statements would have been harmless under the facts of this case. Probably, any juror who heard the witnesses testify, saw the physical evidence consisting of photographs, bent barbecue fork, splintered gun butt with which the victims had been stabbed and beaten, after having been raped  such a brutal and heinous crime  would not have been moved or prejudiced by the statements of the prosecuting attorneys. Without doubt, the State's evidence presented in this case would make a strong, courageous, person want to cry and would make a cowardly weakling want to jump up and fight like a tiger. The assigned Error III is rejected. AFFIRMED. HAWKINS, P.J., and ROBERTSON, PRATHER, SULLIVAN, ANDERSON and ZUCCARO, JJ., concur. DAN M. LEE, P.J., concurs in result only.