Opinion ID: 2622835
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Asking Jurors to Stand in the Victims' Shoes

Text: In her closing argument to the jury, the prosecutor said she expected defense counsel to argue that the victims lacked credibility because they could not remember certain details about the rooms in which the sexual misconduct occurred. In anticipation of that argument by the defense, the prosecutor told the jury: [P]ut yourself in that situation.... I will pick someone at random. Juror Number 12. I'm going to take Juror 12 back in the jury deliberation room. I'm going to take a flashlight and beat him up bad. I won't really. And it's going to last about 10 minutes. And then you are going to leave and you are never going to go in that room again. And four years from now I'm going to put you on that witness stand and I'm going to say `What magazines were on that side table? What color was the rug?' Are you going to remember the flashlight? Are you going to remember me? Are you going to remember maybe what you are wearing and how many stitches you got in your head? Probably. Are you going to remember the color of the carpet? No. Does that mean that you are not going to accurately remember and testify about me beating you up? No. Later, the prosecutor made a similar comment in discussing victim Gerardo V.'s testimony that one of the acts of molestation occurred in defendant's bedroom, that the room had a piano, but that he could not remember other items in the room. The prosecutor argued: This means that the defendant is lying when he says that Gerardo was never [in defendant's bedroom]. Think about it this way: If I picked one of you out at random. Juror Number Five. And I said, `Tell me what's in my bedroom.' You could probably guess some stuff and get it right. You'd say bed. You'd say dresser. You'd say alarm clock. And from those answers no one would know whether you have been in my bedroom or not ... because I have all those things in my bedroom. Everybody has those things in their bedroom. [¶] What if you said something really weird? I have this weird clock that's made from the head of a baby doll and then on top of it is this dial that comes up. It's very weird.... If you, Juror Number Five, said `There's this weird clock with a baby head and dial that freaked me' people would know ... that is something specific and unusual that [lets] us understand that he's actually been in my bedroom. [¶] Well, a piano is a weird thing to have in your room, right? And what did Gerardo describe when [defense counsel] was pushing him about what is in that room? He didn't say bed or chest of drawers. He said piano and there's a piano in that room. So what does that mean? Just like Juror Number Five, he was in that room, because you are not going to pick piano off your top 10 list of things ... that is in somebody's room. In holding that prosecutorial argument to be improper, the Court of Appeal observed: What the prosecutor was doing was asking the jurors to stand in the shoes of the victim witnesses. This is misconduct. As stated in People v. Stansbury (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1017, 1057[, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756] ..., `an, appeal to the jury to view the crime through the eyes of the victim is misconduct at the guilt phase of trial. It is true that ordinarily a prosecutor may not invite the jury to view the case through the victim's eyes, because to do so appeals to the jury's sympathy for the victim. ( People v. Leonard (2007) 40 Cal.4th 1370, 1406, 58 Cal.Rptr.3d 368, 157 P.3d 973; see also People v. Stansbury, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 1057, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 174, 846 P.2d 756; People v. Fields (1983) 35 Cal.3d 329, 362, 197 Cal.Rptr. 803, 673 P.2d 680.) In Leonard, which involved the cold-blooded killings of six persons, the prosecutor told the jurors: `Imagine in that last millisecond before the lights go out, when you hear the report of the gun, when you feel the wetness ... the small vapor of blood that is blown out the back or the side of their head and they fall to the floor, and in their last moment of consciousness, they think, I misjudged this man.' ( People v. Leonard, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 1407, fn. 7, 58 Cal.Rptr.3d 368, 157 P.3d 973.) Here, however, the prosecutor did not ask the jurors to view the crimes through the eyes of the victims. Rather, she gave two hypotheticals in which the victims did not at all figure. The first had her beat a juror with a flashlight in the jury deliberation room. She then made her point that four years later the juror, having never again visited the jury room, might not remember such details as the magazines on the table or the color of the rug but might vividly remember that the assault took place in the jury deliberation room. In the second hypothetical, the prosecutor asked a juror to imagine going into the prosecutor's bedroom and remembering an unusual piece in the room, namely, a weird clock ... made from the head of a baby doll. The juror's recollection of that one highly distinctive item in the room, the prosecutor argued, would tend to show his actual presence in the room containing that unusual item. Similarly, the prosecutor maintained, in this case victim Gerardo's testimony that he had been in defendant's bedroom was credible because he remembered a highly unusual item he saw there, namely, a piano. In neither scenario did the prosecutor ask the jurors to stand in the shoes of the victims, so as to evoke jury sympathy for the victims. We perceive no impropriety in the prosecutor's argument. Consequently, the Court of Appeal erred when it held that defense counsel's failure to object to that argument violated defendant's constitutional right to competent counsel. (See People v. Dickey, supra, 35 Cal.4th at p. 915, 28 Cal.Rptr.3d 647, 111 P.3d 921.)