Opinion ID: 158651
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Eliciting Sympathy for the Victim

Text: 85 Petitioner first argues that during closing arguments at both stages, the prosecution sought to ensure a conviction and death sentence by appealing to the emotions of the jury and attempting to elicit sympathy for the victim. During the first stage closing arguments, the prosecutor referred to the victim by a nickname not supported by the evidence. Also, the prosecutor asked the jury to speculate about what may have happened to the victim, despite admitting that he did not know exactly what happened to her, and commented on the suffering of the victim's family. 10 During the second stage, the prosecution continued with its pleas for victim sympathy by speculating about what happened to the victim and her responses, pointing out the loss to her family, stating petitioner gets the benefit of the doubt but the victim did not despite her innocence, and stating that a death verdict was proper out of love for the victim and her parents and the past and the future victims of petitioner. 11 86 To the extent the prosecutor speculated about what petitioner did to the victim, the federal district court determined the comments were a tenable explanation based on evidence and logical inferences from the evidence. With respect to the comments about the suffering of the victim's mother and family, the federal district court determined the comments were improper, but petitioner failed to show the comments were so egregious as to render the trial fundamentally unfair, especially in light of the overwhelming evidence of guilt and the jury instructions regarding sympathy. 87 This court does not condone prosecutorial remarks encouraging the jury to allow sympathy to influence its decision. See Duvall, 139 F.3d at 795. After reviewing the record, however, we cannot conclude the comments affected the outcome at either stage of trial. The prosecution's speculations about what happened to the victim were reasonable possible inferences based on the evidence. Cf. Hooks, 184 F.3d 1206, 1221-1222 (references not so far off the actual evidence nor so central to the prosecutor's case that they were likely to have affected the jury's verdicts). The State's evidence makes it probable that the murder of the young victim produced sympathy before the prosecution made any closing remarks. See Duvall, 139 F.3d at 795. Some emotion is inevitable in capital sentencing[,] and the prosecutor's appeals to emotion in this case were not sufficient to render the argument improper. Coleman v. Brown, 802 F.2d 1227, 1239 (10th Cir. 1986). 88 The trial court instructed the jury at both stages to consider the evidence and testimony received at trial and not to allow sympathy to enter into its deliberations. These instructions, which the jury presumably followed, helped to mitigate the effect on the jury of any possible improper prosecutorial statements. See Fero, 39 F.3d at 1474. 89 In light of the evidence and the instructions, this court is not persuaded that the prosecution's remarks denied petitioner a fair trial or his right to due process. 90