Opinion ID: 2369836
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Did comments made by the prosecutor deprive defendant of his right to a fair trial?

Text: Defendant contends that his right to a fair trial was violated by comments made by the prosecutor during the proceedings. Specifically, defendant asserts that it was highly improper for the prosecutor to speculate that young witnesses were testifying as though they themselves feared they might have been defendant's victim; to describe defendant as a big man among lesser thugs, referring to a statement made by defendant at the Hempstead police station; to use dehumanizing and degrading epithets about defendant as being a cold person who had a lack of feeling, a lack of any remorse, a complete lack of concern about his own predicament; to suggest that defendant had an obligation to prove that his picture had been in the paper when defense counsel cross-examined witnesses about whether their eyewitness accounts had been influenced by the picture; to speculate that there was blood from defendant under the victim's fingernails; to suggest to the jury that it conduct its own scientific experimentation without adequate evidentiary guidelines; and, finally, that the prosecutor undermined defendant's right to be present at his own trial by commenting on the fact that he had sat in the courtroom and he knows what they've all said to you and he knows how his story's got to add up. We are satisfied that those asserted improprieties were not of such a nature as to deprive defendant of a fair trial. Although generally limited to commenting on the evidence and to drawing any reasonable inferences supported by the proofs, a prosecutor may nonetheless make a vigorous and forceful presentation of the State's case. State v. Bucanis, 26 N.J. 45, 56, 138 A. 2d 739, cert. denied, 357 U.S. 910, 78 S.Ct. 1157, 2 L.Ed. 2d 1160 (1958). In each of the instances cited the prosecutor's comments were sufficiently related to the scope of the evidence before the jury. Although the blood under the victim's fingernails could not be identified as defendant's blood, there were scratches and other marks on defendant's face that could warrant an inference that the blood had come from defendant. The reference to defendant as a big man among thugs also had some tangential reference to the evidence offered that defendant explained to the other inmates in the Hempstead lockup that he was going to the head of the line because he had committed a murder. The comments with respect to defendant's demeanor on testimony, taken in their entirety, did not suggest that defendant had any burden to disprove the State's case. The State suggests that the comments about defendant's presence in the courtroom at least nominally addressed the credibility of defendant's comments when he could not explain inconsistencies in the differing accounts. Finally, the suggestion that the jury itself examine the fibers did not bolster any expert's testimony in any way but was more or less a suggestion of a common-sense observation by the jurors that could not have misled the jury.