Opinion ID: 1498296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Expressions as to Credibility

Text: Section 5.8(b) of the ABA Standards Relating to the Prosecution Function states: It is unprofessional conduct for the prosecutor to express his personal belief or opinion as to the truth or falsity of any testimony or evidence or the guilt of the defendant. In the present case, the prosecutor told the jury that apparently counsel does not believe his own defendant. It is obvious from the face of this statement that it was intended to denigrate the defendant's credibility. We have held that a prosecutor may not inject his highly prejudicial personal opinion of appellant's credibility into evidence, thereby clearly and improperly intruding upon the jury's exclusive function of evaluating the credibility of witnesses. Commonwealth v. Potter, 445 Pa. 284, 285 A.2d 492, 493 (1971) (prosecutor's characterization of a portion of the defendant's testimony at trial as a malicious lie held to be reversible error). The prosecutor's remark in this case is a bit more subtle than in the usual case; he does not comment directly upon the defendant's credibility but rather surmises that Joyner's own lawyer must doubt his story because the lawyer emphasized a different defense. As the Commonwealth explains in its brief, This comment was designed to point out the inconsistency between counsel's argument that appellant's will was overborne and appellant's own testimony that he had given no confession. This may be the explanation of the remark, but it does not detract from the prejudicial nature of what was said. The defendant is not bound by a single defense at trial; he may offer as many alternative defenses as he so chooses, and they need not be consistent. The prosecutor's comment was thus completely gratuitous.