Opinion ID: 2317416
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 21

Heading: Referring to victims as Papa and Mama Glo

Text: DeRosa contends the prosecutor violated his right to a fair trial by repeatedly referring to the victims as Papa and Mama Glo, rather than using their real names. Relatedly, DeRosa contends the prosecutor acted improperly and violated DeRosa's right to a fair trial during closing arguments by thanking the jury on behalf of the victims' family. According to DeRosa, these actions by the prosecutor encouraged the jurors to develop improper sympathy for the victims. Aplt. Br. at 72. DeRosa asserted this same claim on direct appeal. The OCCA rejected it, stating as follows: The district attorney repeatedly referred to the victims as Papa and Mama Glo.FN107 Defense counsel objected to the use of these terms of endearment during the testimony of the State's first witness, Roger Murray (the ranch hand who discovered the Plummer bodies).FN108 During a bench conference, defense counsel objected to the prosecutor's use of the nicknames and asked that the victims be referred to by their actual names. The objection was overruled by the trial court without comment; and the district attorney continued referring to Papa and Mama Glo throughout his questioning of Murray, as well as during his closing arguments for both stages of DeRosa's trial.FN109 FN107. The other two prosecutors who participated in the trial referred to the victims by their more formal, given names. FN108. Murray referred to Curtis Plummer as Papa and referred to Gloria Plummer as Mama Glo. FN109. Gloria Plummer's sister, Jo Milligan, was the only other witness who ever referred to Papa and Mama Glo, and she did so only one time, during the second stage of trial. Milligan also called the victims Curt and Glo. Janet Tolbert, the Plummers' only child, consistently referred to her parents as mother and daddy. Hence the State's argument that the victims were generally referred to as Papa and Mama Glo is not supported by the record, nor is the argument that the district attorney used these nicknames merely to make its first witness more comfortable, since he began using the familial names in the first lines of his opening statement. DeRosa characterizes the district attorney's use of these familiar names as an improper attempt to align himself with the victims. DeRosa notes that the district attorney also thanked the jury on behalf of the victims.FN110 This Court finds that the district attorney did improperly seek to align himself with the victims and that the trial court erred by overruling DeRosa's objection to this attempt.FN111 We do not conclude, however, that the trial court's ruling amounted to an abuse of discretion or that the prosecutor's actions had any effect upon the verdicts. DeRosa was found guilty and sentenced to death based upon the overwhelming and properly admitted evidence in the case. Within the context of the entire trial, the prosecutor's actions were not so prejudicial that they rendered DeRosa's trial fundamentally unfair or his death sentence unreliable. FN110. During his guilt-stage closing argument, the district attorney stated, Now, on behalf of the family and the State of Oklahoma, I want to say thank you for your jury service. FN111. See Tobler v. State, 1984 OK CR 90, 688 P.2d 350, 356. Standing alone, the prosecutor's thank you statement was not significant in this regardnor was it objected tothough it did add to the potential harm from the use of the familial references. DeRosa I, 89 P.3d at 1146 (internal paragraph numbers omitted). We conclude, after reviewing the trial transcript, that the OCCA's harmless error analysis was reasonable. And although DeRosa asserts in this appeal that the prosecutor's comments specifically violated his Eighth Amendment right to a fair and reliable sentencing proceeding, the transcript of the sentencing proceeding clearly indicates otherwise. Unlike in Caldwell, the prosecutor's comments did not result in the jury believ[ing] that the responsibility for determining the appropriateness of the defendant's death rest[ed] elsewhere. 472 U.S. at 328-39, 105 S.Ct. 2633. Nor did the prosecutor's comments appear to impact the reliability of the jury's second-stage verdict. Finally, and relatedly, the prosecutor's comments were not significant enough to cause the jury to base its second-stage verdict on caprice or emotion, rather than reason. Gardner, 430 U.S. at 358, 97 S.Ct. 1197. In other words, the comments were harmless because they did not have a substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict. Fry, 551 U.S. at 116, 127 S.Ct. 2321 (internal quotation marks omitted).