Opinion ID: 1249738
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Propriety of Content of Closing Argument.

Text: (51) Conceding that his counsel failed to object at the time, defendant contends we should reverse the judgment as to penalty because the prosecutor mentioned his lack of remorse, an improper comment when defendant has maintained his innocence. We have held, however, that a claim of misconduct on that ground may not be made unless a defendant has objected at trial. ( People v. Wharton, supra, 53 Cal.3d 522, 593.) [16] Defendant contends an objection would have been futile because at the time of trial there was no case law forbidding such commentary. We disagree: had the prosecutor's remark been as plainly improper as defendant now contends, prudence would have dictated an objection whether any law immediately came to mind or not. But there was no misconduct: the prosecutor did not argue that defendant felt no remorse for the deaths of Gardner and Patch, but rather that he lacked remorse for the death of Obidee Cowart, the security guard defendant admitted killing and for whose death he was serving time in prison. [17] (52a) Defendant also contends the prosecutor committed misconduct in having a psychiatrist testify from a 1977 report that defendant had been quite violent and his violence potential continues to be at least moderate in both [institutional and noninstitutional] situations, and then saying at closing argument that defendant has kept up a continuous pattern of violence again and again and again and was committed to violence. (53)(See fn. 18.), (52b) Defendant objected to the psychiatrist's testimony on the ground that it improperly implied an expert's conclusion about defendant's future dangerousness, and the court struck it. [18] Of course it would have been improper for the prosecutor to refer in argument to the psychiatrist's testimony after the court had struck it, but the prosecutor's references to defendant's commitment to violence appear to have been based on defendant's criminal record. As we read his argument, the prosecutor was asserting that defendant had maintained a continuous pattern of violence in the past and was not going to change his behavior. Any link with the stricken testimony about future dangerousness is entirely too tenuous to command reversal. (See People v. Wharton, supra, 53 Cal.3d at p. 594.)