Opinion ID: 2581358
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plea on behalf of the victim

Text: The prosecutor opened his penalty phase argument by reading part of the prologue to a book written about a murder victim unrelated to this case. The text describes how, after a murder, the dead person ceases to be a part of everyday reality, ceases to exist, as the survivors inevitably turn away from the past, toward the ongoing reality, which includes the victim's killer who is trapped, anxious, now helpless, isolated often badgered and bewildered. Thus, the culprit usurps the compassion that is justly his victim's due. [8] Defendant objected to the passage on the ground that it was a plea for juror sympathy and unduly prejudicial, but the trial court overruled the objection, concluding that had the prosecutor written it himself he could have made the same argument in his own words. Defendant argues that reading this passage was improper because it focused on the victims' families, although the book was not written about the families of the victims in this case, thus making an improper appeal to the sympathies of the jurors. We find nothing objectionable on either ground asserted. As we have observed in the past, the text read to the jury is a reminder that the victims of murder are absent from the courtroom, but the living defendant is present. ( People v. Rowland, supra, 4 Cal.4th at pp. 277-278, fn. 17, 14 Cal.Rptr.2d 377, 841 P.2d 897.)