Opinion ID: 1762542
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Defense Counsel's Closing Argument Improperly Curtailed

Text: The final contention of error occurred in this setting: The defendant's wife, Audrey, testified that her husband had no knowledge of her acquiring the drugs in question, and that she had hidden from him that she was still addicted to the use of heroin. The prosecutor argued to the jury that, since the wife admitted she was shooting twelve papers of heroin a day into her veins, her husband should have known she was an addict. In the defense's closing argument, counsel attempted in rebuttal to argue that it is not obvious to another that a person is an addict until he has been using the drug for at least six months. [6] The prosecutor objected that the defense counsel was testifying as an expert to matters outside the record. The trial court sustained the objection to this line of argument as being outside the scope of the evidence and solely the opinion of counsel himself. The defendant perfected Bill of Exception No. 8 to this ruling of the trial court. The defendant points out that considerable latitude is to be allowed counsel in arguments before the jury, and that it is error to abridge the defendant's right to be heard on all the facts and circumstances which are in evidence. 5 Wharton's Criminal Law and Procedure, Section 2081 (1957). Further, if the defendant's rebuttal argument was not founded in the evidence, neither, allegedly, was there any evidence to justify the prosecution's argument, and thus justified was the retaliatory reply. State v. Borde, 209 La. 965, 25 So. 2d 736 (1946); Wharton, Section 2083. Nevertheless, the trial court ruling is technically correct: There is no factual basis in the evidence for the defense counsel's argument that signs of addiction do not become observable for six months (but there is at least some factual basis, based on presumed general knowledge, for the prosecutor's argument that a husband should know of his wife's addiction if she uses twelve fixes a day). Broadly speaking, counsel must confine themselves in argument to the facts introduced in evidence, to matters of general or common knowledge, and to the fair and reasonable conclusions to be drawn therefrom. La.Code Crim.P. Art. 774; State v. Henry, 196 La. 217, 198 So. 910 (1940); State v. Seminary, 165 La. 67, 115 So. 370 (1928); Wharton, Section 2082; 6 Wigmore on Evidence, Section 1806 (3d ed., 1940); 23A C.J.S. Criminal Law § 1094; 53 Am.Jur. Trial, Section 480. We are unable to say that the trial court erred in curtailing defendant's closing argument. There was no factual basis in the record for the assertions by counsel, which are not matters of common knowledge.